13 Essentials to DIY a Creative Workspace

By Anjelika Temple

Creating a highly functional creative workspace can be a challenge. You want to see all of your materials, colors and bits of inspiration but you don’t want your space to turn into a crazy, albeit colorful, mess. There are two keys to combating the “did a scrapbook explode in here?” look while still keeping everything you need at the ready: the right desktop organization tools and the right bins, baskets and boxes to store all your goodies.

We teamed up with Target to build out an entire creative workspace from scratch. It goes along with our upcoming New Year’s resolution to make something new every day in 2015. Because you know what? A super organized creative space is a more productive one!

1. Hamilton X Slat Office Desk ($130): First up, set the scene with the perfect desk. We chose one that is stylish, but also has plenty of space underneath for stowing away drawers and the like.

2. Task Lamp ($13): Next up, a bit of illumination. We found this awesome lamp that includes an outlet so you can plug in and charge anything you like. Not only is this great for keeping your smartphone charged, but it’s a great place to keep that spare camera battery powered up at all times.

3. Bulletin Board ($8) and Folder Organizer ($5): We still keep things old school in the inspiration department. Prop up a bulletin board on a side table to IRL pin gorgeous things you come across and to remind yourself to “Call Mom!” You can also use a folder organizer to store magazines, colorful card stock and more.

4. Sterilite Desktop Drawers: Sterilite has a ton of different drawers to choose from, that go in shelves, under your desk and even on top of it. Though you want to keep things on your desk, you don’t want it to get cluttered. We filled our desktop drawers with stamps, ink pads and stationery.

5. Clear Acrylic Counter Tray ($9): You know what we always say? Never underestimate the power of a paint pen. Keep pens, pencils, scissors and glitter (obvs!) at the ready by turning a beauty organizer into a desktop one.

6. Stackable Bin Topper ($10) and Drawer Organizers: In our desk drawer, we keep tools we use all the time. Needle nose pliers, hole punches, washi tape and even Sculpey are part of our daily toolkit. To avoid junk drawer-esque pitfalls, get lots of little bins to keep everything in its right place.

7. Sterilite Under-the-Desk Drawers: Under our desk we’ve got another stack of drawers, and we’re loving the scalloped pattern on them.

8. Sterilite Stack and Carry Storage Tote ($8): As much as we love our desks, sometimes you’ve gotta take your DIY tools and materials on the go. We like to keep a few portable caddies around so that we can fill ‘em up with whatever we’re using that day.

9. Sturdy Fabric Buckets: Storing rolls of paper can be kind of the worst. They can get easily crushed or stick out from your shelves. Instead, use a bucket to keep all those paper rolls in order. Bonus points if your fabric bucket is as pretty as the papers it contains.

10. ClosetMaid Fabric Storage Cubes ($10): Though we love to keep fabric folded and stacked, it’s important to have a catch all for those bits and pieces that don’t stack up quite so nicely.

11. More Sterilite Plastic Drawers: In our shelves, we’ve got even more plastic drawers! In this ones we’ve got wooden beads and tags. And yes, we laser cut Brit + Co into one of them! We also love this navy blue stack of Sterilite Drawers ($6) and this hot pink Sterilite Storage Drawer ($10) if you feel like making sure every bright color you love is represented in your space.

12. Lidded Boxes ($26 for 2): As you can see, we’ve got lots of different bins, drawers and boxes all around our space. At the bottom of our bookshelf, we went with two lidded boxes to keep all those things that don’t really have a home. Case in point? A whole bunch of plastic animal toys :) For other odds and ends, we also recommend this set of 6 Sterilite Storage Totes ($17).

13. Baskets: Finally, you can never have too many baskets! They’re great for storing things like yarn, fabric, stuffing for pillows and so on.

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