My Studio

The image for this blog heading is my old studio in Virginia. My studio space in Florida doesn't photograph as well. I took over the living and dining room of this house and laid out my studio to have space for paper, computer, sewing, and embroidery. I ended up putting in a space for my grandson to work on his projects. Paper is the northeast corner, embroidery is the southeast corner, sewing is southwest, and reading/grandson space is the northwest corner. He gets the square coffee table and can sit on the floor.

There are five bookcases. There are crates, boxes, and tubs. There is storage under the paper crafting tables and under the cutting table. I have my grandmother's sewing cabinet, my mother's sewing cabinet, and my grandfather's curio cabinet. Storage, as they say, is non-trivial. There are also six tables for workspace, not counting the ironing board.

While ten people could not all work in here at once, there are ten separate work zones. Cutting, sewing, ironing, reading, kid, computer, embroidery, diecuts, paper and stamping/beading. I use lots of local lamps as the living room has no ceiling light. The dining room has the chandelier, that I got Bud to loop up high enough to walk under. Neither window gets a lot of direct sunlight. That's a Good Thing down here. Direct sunlight = hot. 

I put up a folding screen to block access from the butler's pantry and a dog gate to block access from the front hall. There are toxic things in my studio that would kill Jack if she were to get her teeth into them. Jack would not still live Some of them are stored well within her reach. Even my grandson is not allowed in if I am not in here with him.

Even with this incredible workspace, before I quit working, I didn't feel like making stuff very often. Now, I'm getting back to work in a big way. Each day I either make significant progress on a project or I finish something off. With all that, I have only  started my attack on three years of round tuits.

Mess Reduction

I hate working in a mess. I have trouble doing it in fact. But, gradually, my workspace had degenerated into horrible mess status. At least, for me it was a horrible mess. I spent a goodly portion of yesterday tearing it apart and rebuilding it into neatness. I still need to take care of one or two last odds and ends, but the cleaned up space looks like this. As you can see, I've got more paper holders than I used to, but I have about the same amount of paper. I stored my Club Scrap paper under the table in the pizza boxes that it came in. There was a lot of wasted space in those boxes! I still need to get storage for the 8.5x11 paper. But that's currently in a pile on my table, next to the drawers of embellies and inks.

As of 1:50 today, that's what my scrapping space looks like. I wonder how long it will stay that neat?

Latest Addition

The most recent successful addition to my scraproom is a box of tissues. Not a huge box, one of the 'boutique' sized boxes. I didn't know how much I'd use them until I put them on my table. I will need to replace that box with a full one sooner than I thought.

Being a penny pinching crafter, I take the time to cut sheets of paper towel into quarters and put them in a stack, instead of tearing sheets off a roll. It doesn't take long because I use a big rotary trimmer and go through six layers at a time. The squares work better than the stamp scrubber pads I've tried to keep my stamps spanking clean.

An alternative to cutting up tissues and using smaller squares is toilet paper. Nope. My brain just shut down and refused to function. That is where I draw the line. Tissues. Tissues are good. Perhaps I'll create a cover for the box out of chipboard and patterned paper.

Punches!

I've been slowly getting punches in the Marvy Uchida set and those beasties are large and annoying to store. The only reasonable solution is to put them into a shoe bag over the door. So that's exactly what I did. Thank goodness for Walmart's laundry and storage section. There are a number of different sizes and styles to choose from. I could have hoped for shorter pockets, but that wouldn't work if folks wanted to actually store shoes in them. I don't know anyone who uses these for shoes, though. I left empty pockets on purpose. I don't own those punches yet, but they are on the list.

Aha!

Trying to work when you are in a bad mood really points out what you don't like in your studio. I don't like my paper stored on horizontal shelves. It doesn't work for me, I can't find what I need unless I pull everything out and shuffle through it. I like the Cropper Hopper vertical storage systems. I need to get more of those and use them instead of the vertical storage.

I can use the vertical storage for other things. I can't turn the storage on its side and put the Cropper Hopper bits inside them. They don't fit, I checked long ago. Or do they? The small ones fit. The large ones do not. I use a lot of the small ones. Hmmm...

I have a reason to be tearing up my scrapping space now, instead of just a fit of bad temper.

Scraproom Progress

I went to Loewe's yesterday and got a storage cabinet. It took three trips, because some of the hardware was missing or damaged, but I ended up with the right hardware, and plenty of it at no cost other than two more trips to Loewe's. The cabinet is 70 inches tall, 36 inches wide and can hold things that are 20 inches deep. There are shelves and a center divider inside. I currently have it filled with things that came off the bookcase that I'm painting, so I didn't take a photo of the interior. It's a fake pine covering.

I decided on a cabinet instead of a shelving unit because I don't like to have my stuff out in the open. I think things look cluttered that way and I'd rather have my stuff hidden behind doors that I can close. The cabinet is already placed in the room where it will stay. I measured from the corner, so when my big tables move downstairs, they will fit.

On the floor, you can see three shelves that I'm painting white. That's a part of my sewing storage and will end up in the opposite corner of the room. I have a white sewing table already and I wanted the bookcase to match it. I like white furniture for my craft space, what can I say?

The craft space re-do is going slowly. I'm thinking a lot about each purchase and addition before I make it. I want to have most of my placement of objects planned out in advance, and not higgeldy-piggeldy, put things in locations that don't work for me. My scrapping space will be a large L, with the short section to my right and behind me. When I sit in the corner of the L and face the window, I want to be able to easily reach a lot of my supplies without straining for them.

Next Step in the Craft Room

I looked again at the chair-rail molding I had wanted to use to make a frame around my Lisa & Becky rail system parts. Not going to happen. I don't feel like spending over $50.00 for it. I'd have to get two 8' pieces of molding to have enough to make the size frame I want to make. I'm going to stencil a frame instead. I also decided to paint a bookcase that I've got, to make it white and matching. I've got the bookcase, I've got the paint. That will get started tonight.

Poor Hubby was dragged along shopping today and didn't care for it much. I looked at several storage systems and decided to go home and measure, before I bought anything. I think I'll get a cabinet, instead of steel shelving. I'd rather not have steel shelving and the cabinet will be the same size as the shelving. I'd rather have things behind closed doors than out on a shelf. Well, I want my stamps out on a shelf, but that's because that's the best way for me to be able to find the ones that I want.

Craft Space Planning and Progress

I got my stamp shelving up. I bought two 10' lengths of 1" x 4"manufactured wood and cut them to 40" pieces or 6 shelves. Then I sanded and painted them. I've seen them with molding attached to the front of the shelf, but I know me, and the project wouldn't get done. I used angle brackets, not shelf brackets to attach them to the wall. Shelf brackets are too large.To get the shelves evenly spaced, I hung two and then made a jig out of a scrap of bookboard that fit exactly between the two shelves. I used it instead of a ruler, but I still double checked with my level. While it might look as if the shelves are hanging in the middle of nothing, my L shaped work table will fit underneath them and they will be behind me and to my right when I'm working. I'll sit facing the window, with work surface in front and to my right.

I've been thinking carefully about the rest of my layout and storage. I have a workspace that isn't laid out well for the way that I work. I did my best, but ended up fitting what I had into the space that I had and making the best of it. This time, I hope to plan ahead, find things that will work together, and solve the problems I discovered in my current workspace. My goal is to solve these problems without spending heaps of money.

Effort for Results

I am continually creating not only things, but myself. I have been working very hard lately on keeping a positive mental attitude. This would amaze folks who think of me as a perpetual sunny day kind of person. But this sunny day person gets grumpy at times. Often I get grumpy at the wrong things, or for the wrong reasons. I've been practicing doing things to make myself think happy thoughts instead of becoming grumpy for the wrong reasons. I listen to happy music, I repeat happy phrases to myself or I just think of one of my many, many blessings. I'm not getting grumpy nearly as often for the wrong reasons. In fact, some things are losing their power to make me upset at all. I like realizing that.

On another front, I'm also creating a scrapping/papercrafting space in my basement, where I can work and be closer to my Wonderful Husband. The first step was going into the basement and moving things around a little, so I'd have space to work with. Now, I'm working on creating shelving for stamp display and storage. We got two ten foot lengths of 1 x 4 and I'll be painting them white after I cut them to length and sand them a little. Then Wonderful Husband will hang them on the wall and I'll have stamp storage.

For all that I will have 20 feet of shelf space for stamps, I can fill that much and more. I've just finished measuring my collection, which is currently in rows four to six deep on the meager shelving that I have now. I might not have gotten enough wood.

Here is the space at the start of this project, as it looks right now. The walls are a pale blue, the carpeting is gray. The opposite corner of the room contains my sewing furniture and the ironing board. You can see less than half of the room in this photo, it's more like 1/3.

Major and Minor

Minor- I forgot a card reader and will have to simply save my graduation photos on the card until I can get them home. I can't share them, I can't really even look at them. Drat.

Major- Wonderful Hubby and I are in agreement that I'm going to move my scrapping/papercrafting workspace into the basement. The room is huge and I'll have everything in one area. That will be great. I'll have enough space to set up my tables the way I originally wanted. There is wall space for my stamp storage. But, there isn't very good cell phone reception in the basement.

Is There an Organization Muse?

I think that's the muse that visits me most frequently. Creativity is difficult for me and I'm always struggling with it. Organization, now that falls from my fingertips like water from a fountain. I managed to CASE or come up with designs for a few more cards this morning.

There is a quote about creative mess and neat and tidy idleness. I have neat and tidy creativity. I can't create in a mess. That photo at the top of my blog is my scrapping room. The more I work in a space, the neater it gets. What creates a mess in my workspace would be potential projects. Those ideas that I'm testing, the sample I bring home from a crop, the new stamps that I haven't put away yet. Once those potentials turn into projects, the mess goes away It must be because I hate to look for things. I don't put a tool down when I've finished using it, I put it away. When I want it again, be it in three minutes or three days, I know exactly where it is and I can find it instantly. I don't know if it's faster or slower than just putting tools down and searching for them a bit. I only know that is the way I work best.