Studio Tour: Part Two
April 22, 2010
Today's post is a continuation of my studio tour. This is part two!
I've created a little hallway into the room by my placement of the "play" desk. Here's what it looks like:
The desk is on the right, just out of the frame of the photo. There isn't a lot of space for storage. Even shelves would stick out too much, so I came up with a (relatively) flat solution!
I hung some metal grids (pieces of a cube storage system that fell apart when we moved) on the wall. My embellishments are all hanging from book rings, which are attached to the grid wall with little alligator clips (they're actually clips from the "Clip It Up" system).
Each of the book rings is labeled. When I'm looking for journaling spots or brads or rub-ons, I just grab the ring and bring it to my desk. It's an easy system. I love it!
Above the wire grid are two bulletin boards. I have a collection of Ziploc bags hanging from the bulletin boards.
The bags are full of fabric scraps, sorted by color. Here's a close up:
This is a very inexpensive storage solution. In fact, this whole wall is an inexpensive solution that doesn't take up a lot of depth.
This next space is one of my favorite spaces in the room. It's the space under the window.
The chair was in our last living room and it was going to get thrown away, so I grabbed it for my studio. It's super comfy and allows my husband or a friend to sit comfortably and chat while I'm working. It's also got a nice light above it, so it's great for curling up with a book too! Next to it is a folding bookshelf that I've had since college. I love that thing! And then you can see the little white stool I found in the trash several years ago. It works as a side table, storage, and a resting place for piles of books and magazines! Just out of the frame on the right, you can sort of see the ironing board. It hangs on the wall and when I need it, I take it down, but it's too big to leave out in the room. Let's take a closer look at that shelf....
Mostly, I use it to store my Prima stuff. If you're interested in my fabulously free storage units, I did a tutorial a while back on how to turn the boxes that come in the mail into crafty storage.
Paper, letters, felt.
Flowers sorted by color.
To the left of the chair is my typewriter/jewelry area.
You can see the TV on top of the filing cabinet, lots of drawers (labeled, of course), and shelves stuffed with goodies. I'm sure that people walk into this room and think that things are just a mess, but everything has a place.
I keep the typewriters covered to try to limit the amount of dust in them. The one on the left types cursive letters and the one on the right does regular typewritten letters.
The shelf directly above that area is filled with beads.
And that $10 clip lamp is my renter's solution to not enough light. I hung those clip lamps every three feet and put in those energy saver bulbs to keep the room from getting too hot. It makes an enormous difference and nothing had to get screwed into the ceiling or anything like that.
The drawers below are filled with goodies. Each one opens to reveal something fun.
Fabric! Such an addiction of mine. I can't stop buying gorgeous fabric!
A drawer full of UTEE.
And as I mentioned, I do label every single one of the drawers, so things are easy to find and easy to put away.
Nope, not my full time job. Or I guess I should say, not my only full time job! LOL! I am also the Artistic Director of The Milk Can Theatre Company here in NYC.
Posted by: Kristina | April 21, 2010 at 02:52 PMI'm still wondering- what is the toilet paper roll for?
Kristina, I love to stamp with my toilet paper tube! You can see an example of what it looks like here.
How about sharing more of your tips and tricks on getting organized and staying that way like the labels. I am constantly searching for something I know I bought last week!!! :)
Posted by: Carol | April 21, 2010 at 04:20 PMI love organizing! I went searching for an old post that I know I wrote on the subject about a year ago, but I couldn't find it. So, here are a few tips off the top of my head:
- Don't be at all concerned about your space looking pretty. Make it functional. Unfortunately, I don't think pretty and functional go hand in hand. Open shelving isn't pretty, but it works well. Neatly stacked boxes are pretty, but they just aren't functional. You're never going to bother to get whatever is in the bottom box.
- The foundation of your space is wickedly important. I think that sometimes people are "penny wise and pound foolish." Cute little containers are less important than a great set of shelves or drawers. But the latter are expensive and the former are cheap and easy to carry home. Before we moved into this apartment I spent a lot of time thinking through the structure of the room. I even geeked out enough to draw myself a ground plan and made little furniture units which I pushed around.
- Organize the way your brain works. Seriously, there is no "one system fits all" when it comes to organizing. We each have our own peccadillos, If you know you always start with cardstock and then go to patterned paper and then add embellishments, store your supplies in those groups and in that order. I like to have some overarching categories (paint, fabric, etc.) and then organize by color within that category.And yeah, the labels. I am a control freak about the labels. If I don't label every drawer, every box, every bin, I will lose stuff. Labels make it easier to put away and easier to find. I actually think that the secret to a great organizational system is the ease of putting stuff away. If it's not easy to put away, you'll never do it.
- That leads me to my final point: I love to make a mess. But I *always* clean up between projects and I purge at least 3 times a year. I do light clean up (clear off my desk) between projects and then heavy clean up (get everything off the floor, empty all those bags I've been meaning to empty, put those layouts into albums, etc.) about once a month. And purging 3 or more times a year really helps me keep track of what I have, what I use, and definitely helps to keep things tidy.
Join me tomorrow for the final installment of the studio tour! And do let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks for stopping by!
Is this your full time job? Just curious, I still work full time but would love to have this be my full time job one day.