Seleena's Craft Closet

We head to Manchester to peek inside Seleena's craft closet. It may be small but it's crammed full of inspiration.

I love that it's full of my stuff! I like having lot's of things around me. That it is in a room with a window, I like natural daylight A LOT!

Tell us about your space

My space is TINY! I still live it at home so it is just a section of my bedroom. It's a closet-cum-studio.
The closet it self is only around 1mx2.5m. One end is full of my clothes and shoes the other all my crafting bits and bobs, so space is ridiculously tight.
It is basically a desk with some drawers underneath, a couple of wall shelves and two shelving units housing fabric, zines, things I've made and supplies.
I sew (only hand sewing as there is not enough room to machine sew sadly), make zines and eat a lot of crisps in here!

What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?

The size of it makes it instantly cosy! But as I said before I like A LOT of stuff around me. To the untrained eye it looks like an awful lot is going on but I'm super organised and would notice if my scissors were put away wrong or a postcard shifted an inch on the wall!
I love stuff on the walls (see my 'art' wall) just outside of my space so lot's of postcards, pictures of things I have made, things made by my friends, art postcards, photos, lot's of colour!
I need visual stimuli to get inspired.

How do you keep organized?

I LOVE ORGANISATION! I'm the person who has organised their record collection in alphabetical, chronological, album then single order. I don't know how to NOT be organised.
I could be because I have so much stuff that if I didn't have some sort of organisation it would just be chaos!
So sorry I don't have any secret knowledge to the key of organising, it just comes naturally to me.

Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?

I love colour blocking! Felt, embroidery threads, sewing threads. It keeps stuff organised but pleasing to the eye.
I use cookie jars I had when I used to own a sweet shop to house scraps of felt, tins, jars and stack boxes are definitely my friend!
I put types of fabric together ie cottons, jersey, felt, furry, so it's easier to find when you need something.
I have a stupid ridiculous memory too so that helps me, as I have EVERYTHING in my space, you name it I got it, beading, printing, sewing, crochet, knitting, quilling, it's a mini craft shop (bit of a hoarder!). But if I didn't have a great memory I would go for labels, label draws, shelves, tins everything!

Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?

Things that were gifted to me, like some engraved scissors, a box for my threads, postcards sent to me. And also thing my friends have made for me, darning mushroom, hedgehog pin ring, pictures more!
My pencil collection, of places I have been!
I have some newer pieces of my own on display, and other things under the desk and in boxes (mostly waiting to be sold) I have pictures of things I have made. I think if I had more space I would display more of my own creations.

How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?

I keep my ideas in notebooks, I just counted and there's 18 on my shelf! I like stationary what can I say!
But before the reach notebooks they are usually written on post it notes and pinned to my pin board, so I have to look at them all the time!
Inspiration is just organised in my head! I have a photographic memory and once I have a small note on something I can usually remember what inspired it.

Where do you look for inspiration?

Most of the things I make are directly inspired from pop culture, so music, books, TV, films, a lot of it is from when I grew up, so the 90s.
It's also a lot about me, so being female, a POC, an obsessive!
I tend not to go and look for inspiration for a new idea, I just obsess over something for a period of time and then an idea usually stems from that.

If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?

1. Have an actual ROOM, not a huge space, just somewhere larger than my arm span!

2. A big desk! a big white desk with curved lines and a comfy chair! The desk I currently have is my old counter from my sweet shop, which I covered in some sweet print vinyl so it's too busy even for me! A desk big enough to fit on my stationary, sewing machine, overlocker, threads laptop and to work on, sew on and a chair that doesn't give me back ache. I have a little heart shaped chair which I've had for probably a decade and it's aesthetically pleasing but not the comfiest (plus it just broke the other day!) it's THE DREAM!

3. Get a bulb for my globe lamp that I got around 8 years ago and never had a bulb in it!