- Do you ever wish you
had more storage space? I've just moved back into my sewing room and I'm trying to fit it all in. Here's a fast an easy hack with foam board to get you more capacity in your drawers no matter what their size. to keep your space organised
and working for you, no matter what craft you do. So, stick with me and I'll
show you how to do it. (soft guitar music) Hi there, I'm Karen Brown
of Just Get it Done Quilts. I do tips, tricks, and strategies to help you make the quilt
that you want to make. So, just a little bit of backstory. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you know that my number
three kid just moved out, so I have my sewing room back. Now, I know for some of you, a dedicated craft space
is an impossible luxury, and I should have no
complaints whatsoever, but no matter whether your
space is, small or large, you need to make it work for you. And right at the moment, mine is not. Part of the problem is I
simply have too much stuff. Not only do I have my
quilting stuff in my room, but I also have all our
family's financial papers, I've got an ancestry research project, I've got other crafting stuff, like wool, beading, and embroidery, and then now on top of everything I have video equipment to
help make my YouTube channel. So, the first thing I need to do is purge. That is a constant battle
that we all fight with. But the second part of
it is what's important, I need to make it fit in. So, this week's challenge was to make these drawers hold more. This is a wall unit that
I purchased from Costco. It has a Murphy bed in it, and it allows my sewing room
to double as a guest room. I found the drawers deep,
and there was all this space it was wasted on top. So, my brain got thinking, and thinking, and you know that's a dangerous thing. And suddenly, I thought
of all this foam board that I'd bought from
the local dollar store. So, what I'm going to do, is I'm going to build
a supporting structure in the bottom of the drawer so that I can place a tray on top. All you need for the bottom is foam board, and for the top tray you need
foam board and a glue gun. And you do need several glue sticks. (laughs) And I just love the results. So, this is the drawer
I'm going to start with. As you can see, it's just
filled with bags of scraps. I'm going to take them
out, and let's get it done. First, we need to measure
the height of the drawer. Mine is just under nine inches. So, this first drawer,
I am dividing it 50/50. That's just what I've
decided my needs are. You can make it whatever
proportions you want. So, I'm going to cut my foam board into 4 1/2 inch strips. We will be making a
lattice of three uprights and one crossbar. So, first I'm measuring
the depth of the drawer. It's not necessary to use a ruler, just use one of the strips,
line it up on the edge, and just make a mark at the proper width. So, you want to cut on
the line that you made. Remember to be generous with the line. You can always trim it down later. I need to put a notch in the
middle of the foam board, so I'm marking the midpoint. And I want the height of the notch to the half the size of the foam board the width of the notch is just
the width of your foam board. Don't worry about making it beautiful, nobody's going to see it. It should look like this, and you're going to cut three. Now we measure the width of the drawer to cut the crossbar. My drawer is wider than the foam board, so to the end of my foam strip I am hot glueing a small strip just to give me the length that I need. This piece will need three notches. But don't get all complicated with math, just take a measuring tape
and then fold it in half, mark that spot, and
then fold it in quarters and mark that spot. Then make the notches the same way you made the notches before. On this piece, the
notches will be facing up. Insert the crossbar
approximately in the middle. It should be snug enough
to stand on its own. Then insert the cross pieces. I'm going to pull it out here so you can see it a little bit better. If you've cut one of
your pieces too small, a small wedge of foam will keep it stable. This drawer is for all my
scraps in solid colours. The depth of the tray needs
to be slightly smaller than the depth of the drawer. There needs to be enough
room on the edges of the tray so that your hand can pull the tray out. I'm making my tray four inches high so it's level with the top of the drawer. We are going to cut two
pieces for the length and two pieces for the sides. It's time to get out your glue gun and several sticks of glue. To the bottom of the side piece we are going to add a thick bead of glue. Be ready with your extra glue stick because it uses a lot. Attach it to your tray just at the edge. And if you've missed any spots with glue, you can put them on now. And we're going to repeat
it on the other side. So, on the end pieces, we're going to mark a cutout for our hand. It should be just big enough to fit. Then cut it out. Then use it as a template
for the other side. Before we glue this, we're
just going to insert it into the side here just to
be sure our fit is right, and make any adjustments
we need before we glue. This time, we are glueing
the sides and the bottom. Be sure to have an
additional glue stick ready because it uses a lot. Then insert it into the side. Touch up any spots you might've missed. And with this little piece of foam, I'm just glueing it to the
bottom here over the edge just to give it a little bit
more structural integrity. And then we just repeat
with the other side. Then I put it in my drawer,
and I get to fill it, and I'm going to fill it
with all my strip pieces. And it's done. This drawer beside my sewing machine is going to be for my threads. And I don't need any
dividers for these cones. So, instead of a latus, I'm
going to make a support frame the tray can sit on by taking
two pieces of foam board and glueing them together, putting two on the top, two on the bottom, and then just one on the sides. I measure up the drawer
by marking the foam board. I cut it to size, and then
I cut three more pieces the exact same size. Then with my glue gun, I just run a bead down the middle of the piece and then glue two together. And repeat with the second pair. Then measure and cut the two side pieces. And they fit in pretty nice and slick. So, for the top of this drawer I'm making not one, but two trays, which will stack on top of each other and sit on our lower frame, and maximise my space. So, the sides of these trays are only going to be two inches deep. So, the construction of these small trays are just the same as the larger tray, except we don't need the handle. And in these trays we are
putting small dividers so my threads don't roll around. I just put a dab of glue to
either side of the divider and just put it in place. Add dividers as you need
them and where you need them. And I repeated these
steps with my second tray. And now I have all my
threads nice and neatly in one drawer, in one place. So, this time in the bottom of the drawer I'm making a latus, but it's going to be slightly irregular in shape. So, I'm cutting pieces and
notching them like I did before, but where the notches are placed and the shape of the pieces
are slightly different. And I'm keeping my ever-growing pile of scrap blocks in this spot. So, tray number three is
identical to tray number one, except it's a different size. The purpose of tray number three is to have all my scrap pieces from my scrap sampler blocks ready to go. So, I tested out a
number of different ways to cut the foam board using tools that we would already have. So, I tried the rotary cutters, I tried an X-ACTO knife
and some paper scissors, and I tried this
wonderful little doohickey from my mother's old sewing table, this might be older than me, and this was used to trace darts with carbon paper onto fabric. The smaller one I found
crushed the foam board, so yes you can use it, but
if you have the possibility of using a larger one, I would
recommend the larger one. The X-ACTO knife gave the best results. This was quite good, and
it was actually quite fun. What it did, was it gave a
perforation that you could snap, then you rolled it over the
crease to break it into two. It gives you a rougher finish, but no one's going to see
it, so I didn't really care. Be sure when you're doing your drawers you put the heavier items and the items that you use
less often on the bottom. So, obviously this is not the end. I have this whole other
side still to deal with, plus a couple of cupboards. All sorts of things to clear out, so stay tuned for more episodes here. So, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit that bell beside the subscribe button if you want YouTube to notify you when I make new videos. You can also follow me on
Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest at Just Get it Done Quilts. So, take care, and I'll see you next time.
