ARTHaven – Pegboard Accessories

My pegboard accessories arrived today – great excitement! I have put them up, but of course I shall have to live and work with them for a bit to see if they are how I want them. The joy of pegboard is that you can change things around so easily, so it’s no problem.

Here’s a general view of the work corner of my ARTHaven, showing the new Ikea rails and the pegboard complete with accessories.

A couple of different views:

These are some screw-top plastic jars. The lids remain clipped onto the pegboard, and you unscrew the jar from underneath. They will be useful for paper flowers and other small things. Alongside them are some open-topped plastic bins which I am keeping my stickles and alcohol inks and one or two other things in. Below the jars is one of two tool racks that I bought – I am not using the second tool rack at the moment but may have need of it in the future. I would like to find a way of inserting tubes into some of the holders so that I could use it for pens – perhaps a metal cigar tube would do? Something to explore… I have also put up a couple of ordinary pegboard hooks on which I have hung my Stanley knife and my brayer. (On the subject of craft knives, I have tried a few, and find the Stanley knife to be by far the best – it’s a lot more substantial than a lot of smaller craft knives, and seems to cut through without as much pressure. The blades are also readily available in any DIY store.)

Here are the plastic bins with some things in them – as you can see they are not yet all filled. I am sure they soon will be! I also bought 3 of the towel rails, and have put my kitchen roll on one. The others will be used for ribbons – I have got a large pack of ribbons due to arrive in the next day or two, more than will fit on the remaining 2 towel rails, but I can always get more of these if I need to.

Finally, I got a couple of wire baskets, which I am using at the moment for my small stamp pads and peel-offs, and for my heat-embossing stuff, and my flowersoft pots. Underneath I have put a hook to hang my heat gun on. Across the top there are 2 small wooden shelves which my hubby made for me, supported on long pegboard hooks. The small cardboard boxes on top contain card scraps, my stash of cards that I’ve made, and other bits and pieces. I have quite a large collection of these small, strong boxes with hinged lids, from a mail-order company where I get supplements and beauty products, and eventually I want to cover them with decorative paper and put pretty labels on the fronts.

I got the actual pegboards from Amazon (they are made by a company called Sealey), but the accessories proved quite difficult to find in the UK – the USA is blessed with many suppliers of a superb range of things, including coloured pegboards and clear acrylic shelves, and hooks which do not fall out easily, etc. etc. My new accessories do not seem to suffer from this problem, but the standard hooks can be a real pain. Apparently the best way to secure them is with cable ties, once you have decided the final place you want them.

After a lot of searching online, I came across a UK-based company which appeared to be the only place which sold any decent and interesting accessories. They are called Garage Furniture, and here is the link to the pegboard section of their website:

http://www.garagefurniture.co.uk/pegboard-accessories.shtml

They have been an absolute pleasure to deal with throughout; nothing has been too much trouble and they have been so helpful and friendly. The gentleman I spoke to on the phone was interested to know how I would be using their products, and he expressed an interest in getting into the crafting market, which I agreed would be a good idea; he is thinking of investigating the craft show circuit, and I am sure that if he had a stand, it would attract a lot of interest. I told him that there is a severe shortage of stuff available in the UK, and it might be worth exploring importing some of the US products.

Ed.: It now appears that this firm might have gone out of business. I have tried to access their website and it doesn’t seem to exist any more. What a shame. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else doing the full range of accessories.

Now I have got to spend some time working in my new environment and making sure it works for me! Being so adaptable, I am sure that it will be easy to change things round to suit my needs. If I want to put more accessories on (the most likely thing is more towel rails for my ribbons) I can move the shelves to the top of the pegboard, and make more room. I’ll let you know how I get on!