Personalized Sewing Drawers

I am a big fan of personalizing one's space, maybe that comes from having the name Shayla which could never be found anywhere as a kid or maybe it comes from being squished in a small room with two sisters and zero personal space, anyway I love remaking things or just creating something new that represents me, especially for my sewing area.

Do you remember when I showed you this lucky thrift store find?

Turned out to be an Ikea drawer box, which sadly, they do not make anymore, and was just dying to be turned from bland into beautiful.  So after a bit of searching for some public domain designs, I found a bunch of fabulous children's book illustrations in primers and poem books from before 1922 (at least) to use.  Lucky me, I have a sister who is uber-talented at pyrography (wood burning) and traded her a vintage Singer sewing machine (her first real sewing machine, no, the toy one from childhood doesn't count... sniff, I'm so proud) in a sewing cabinet for some artwork.

Now check out my thrift store box...

You can see the natural color variations that come from the different bits of wood used when creating the box.  I love that little bit of quirkiness that wood has!

Gorgeous isn't it?!  And it is one of a kind!  I have two little wood boxes with children's book illustrations on them already, so I decided to stick with the theme--I just adore antique children's books.

Here's some closer views of the drawers:

Upper left drawer--currently holding my snaps, grommets, and hooks & eyes.

Upper middle drawer--currently holding doll/animal safety eyes and my sewing machine light bulbs which I always manage to misplace.

Upper right drawer--currently holding velcro.

Middle left drawer--currently holding my elastic, well some of it anyways.

Middle right drawer--currently holding my embroidery floss.

Bottom drawer--this one holds all my zippers, now they won't get bent!

When you consider that each drawer is only around three inches high, that's some crazy amount of detailing.  I tried to get images from similar time eras so that they would sort of coordinate. 

I also found larger images for the sides and top.  Here are the two sides:

This is me telling Stars, "You musn't keep running through my tulips!"

I just love this image of the little girl wading.  I wonder what she's looking for?

You can see how much little detail work there was on this one!

And the top:

 

I love swinging, so how could I resist this adorable image!

She also signed the bottom with a lovely little note.

 

 

I really think I got the better end of this trade.  My little thrift find is now an heirloom!  Have fun personalizing your sewing space!