Studio Tour

Well, I cleaned my studio.  I had a personal craft day last weekend so I cleaned it for touring with my crafty friends.  It's very rare that the studio is this clean, although my definition of "clean" means "visible desk space" as there are always projects on-the-go that I don't want to stuff somehwere and then forget about.

I decided to show my studio because we're having some eletrical work done and one of the technicians said my craft room was so professional looking.  I was tickled.  He said he remembered it when they came to do the inspection first.  (I only semi-cleaned it then.)  For a man to mention it is out of the ordinary.  I think most would consider it a waste of space.

When one walks in to my studio and looks to the left, one sees my twin desks and triple windows.  While I have such beautiful natural light, it comes from the afternoon sun and heats my room up unbearably.  So, I rarely ever open the blinds.  (Air flow in this house is not the same as our last house.  It is very poor on the top floor while our last house was fairly equal on the main and upper floors.)  I can't have a fan - it would blow all my papers around!

The person before us used this room as a crafting room also.  Her hobby was painting.  My dad was an oil painter and my sister does well with water colours.  Me, I love paper more than colour.  No matter the art, there is always need for storage galore!  I have a space here for a second person to sit at the desk.  I sit on the far side, so I can see the door.  Most of the time, the second desk is littered with papers.  The plastic cart I have had for many many years.  It holds mostly ribbon in the first basket and brads, rhinestones and dew drops on top and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff.

Along the back wall of  my space is my Ikea Expedit shelf.  I purchased some boxes that go with it.  I have not yet assembled all the boxes, hence some of the cubby holes have been filled with "stuff".  The boxes do not fit 12 x 12 papers, but the shelf does.

Next to that is my computer station.  The twin stands here are actually microwave carts.  These were my desks before I bought the Ikea ones.  I find standing over my layouts gives me a better view.  As I make cards more and scrap less now, it was a better idea to go with a sit-down desk in this house.  The microwave carts are handy things: lots of storage and sufficient desk space.  There is a floating shelf above the computer (that didn't make it in to the picture).  In the corner of the room is my Boss Kut Gazelle.  It a plotter.  It plots the paths that I draw on the computer and cuts them out or draws them with a marker.  This is the machine that makes my die cuts.  If I was really pressed, I could move my paper cutter and a third person could craft in my room at one of the microwave carts.

My husband is supportive of my paper additction.  (Hey, I'm supportive of his gaming addiction!)  He took the door off my closet so I could get in there without obstacles.  My Walmart wire cubes were the predecessor storage shelves to my Michaels shelves in the next picture.  I have a wood plank across them and rest things in there like my manual die cutters.

These shelves are the latest additions to my studio space.  These are cubes from Michaels which I got on sale for my birthday present from my husband (in March) and which have been on sale since!  The small drawers are for my scraps by colour groups.  The big ones are for my full pieces of cardstocks and patterned papers.  I definately have more cardstock that patterned paper.  The open shelves are for my pieces of cardstock and patterned paper that have been cut but are too large for the small drawers.  The canvas bin on the floating shelf holds my stamping stuff.  The canvas bin itself came from the dollar store.  I love it.

This is where I take my pictures.  I open a couple blinds and turn on my Ott Lite daylight bulb (the black thing on the cabinets).  I get light from the windows and light from the Ott Lite on the opposite side.  It is very hard for me to take pictures in winter though.  I leave before the sun rises and come home long after the sun as fully set.  Not fun.  I can only take pictures on weekends then.

The Mimi rolling tote on the left was free!  I got it from Costco with my 5-year employee service award from the office.  I had been there more than 5 years at the time, but they were just re-instituting awards so I got a "catch up" recognition.  I had suggested just a card and a thank-you would be nice because some employees were over 15 years with the firm.  They decided to go the extra mile and give shopping rewards at Costco.  Everybody else opted for a gift certificate, but I got my rolling tote and my 12 inch Purple Cows trimmer.  While I have no complaints about this trimmer, I still want the Xacto laser trimmer.  There are a lot of times I am trimming something that printed crooked on my computer, so I can't use the paper edges as a guideline.  I have to eyeball how to cut straight along the printed edges.  The Xacto laser trimmer would show me where my cut is going with a laser light.  My sister has the Making Memories magnetic rotary trimmer but she says she likes my guillotine better.  I love the guillotine style trimmer and will never go back to rotary!  I never have a problem finding new homes for my old tools either.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my paper studio.  If only I had a crafty friend to share it with, it would force me to keep the desk clear more often!