Party Time! The fabulous hostess, Karen Valentine of My Desert Cottage, is once again throwing the biggest blog party on the block and I am happy to join in the creative space tour. If you have followed my creative journey you will have seen much of what is here although it has been shifted around, freshened up, and added too. There are a few new pieces of works in progress to be seen and some stable old favorites making the rounds again. Thank you for bearing with me until I get back in the swing of studio time. I hope you find a little inspiration for your creative space here, enjoy: The studio end to end: One of my paper sculptures, "The Christening Gown", hangs on my studio door. The photo is my mother in the 1940's: A new studio addition is this piece below that holds a few pretties as well as supplies. I also added the small rolling supply cart with hand decorated tin cans for sorting supplies for works in progress. Right now it holds things for three junk journals: This is actually a candle holder that I found at a flea market and love it for my cones of yarn and balls of string: Behind the door I have storage for my buttons, threads, scrap ribbons, and hand dyed ribbons, its amazing what will fit in a 6 inch depth of space: My closet is jam packed with supplies of every kind. My philosophy is to have a little bit of everything but not a lot of any one thing. For me variety is the spice of my crafting life! I have two supply carts that just slide into the sides of the closet one for beads and jewelry and the other for adhesives and painting tools. I love that I can drag these to where ever I am working: FAUX CHALKBOARD TAGS: All my clear bins are labeled not only for my forgetful self but for the guests to my studio to aid in ease of finding supplies. Decorative punch of your choice Black Smooth Card Stock White Colored Pencil Double Stick Tape Punch, Write, Stick! The good thing about this is that the labels easily peel right off the plastic if you need to change them, they are far less expensive than the chalkboard labels, and the writing does not smear or rub off when handling! I have one shelf in the middle of the closet that I keep just for pretty things, this is a rotating display as my mood strikes: The little shoe in front is one of my shoe sculptures. Would you not love to have a gumball machine full of shoes for real? Handmade fabric book by Tina: The bracelet is one of my original design jewelry projects and a favorite of mine to wear: Another one of my handmade shoe sculptures: Handmade journals from swaps: This cabinet is cobbled out of a variety of salvaged pieces and it holds the pretty as well as the practical. My borrowed printer (mine now rests in peace), all sorts of paper from wallpaper to gift wrap supplies live here alongside my boxes of beautiful glass: A work in progress, I just figured out that the Borg Queen (my family named her that) fits perfectly onto a small torso form I recently purchased. I would like it taller so jewelry can be displayed on the rack on front so I will be extending the main pole to add height: Some of my favorite nature things currently live here too. One of my handmade books rest under the cloche: One of my handmade fiber birds: All dressed up and ready to party! This is the wall opposite the closet...now that I am looking at these photos all I can say is HOLY MOLY I have a LOT...way too much...stuff in this room! Please keep in mind that this is years of accumulation, this did not all happen over night: Easiest window treatment ever! The wire shade is also a newer addition. The jewelry strung around the lamp shade frame belonged to my paternal grandmother: 2 Nails 20 Gauge Black Craft Wire Mini Clothes Pins (or paper clips plain or fancy) Hammer Wire Cutters Variety of Papers (I used some of my jewelry design sketches and an assortment of vintage papers) Tap a nail in each corner of your window. Wrap wire securely around one nail then pull wire taunt to other nail and wrap securely, clip off excess wire (I left little tails on mine and curled them around a pencil then squished and stretched them for a wild springy look) Clip papers in place! In the future I would like to pull pieces down and do some artwork on some of them. At the bottom: I used vintage book pages and Victorian era images, a little white paint on a stamp to give my cabinet fronts a collage look. The three drawers on the left are project drawers. The top one is for handmade embellishments, the second one for fabric projects, and the bottom one for paper projects. The center drawer is a tool supply drawer and the cabinets below hold hand tools like my drill, heat tools, staplers, etc. as well as supplies like plaster, spray paint, and other mediums I like to have on hand. The ones on the right are quick easy to reach tools and supplies. I like to use up card stock scraps by cutting them into tag shapes and sorting them by color so I can quickly grab one to collage or paint with left over scraps on my work table at projects end. I tucked the flap of an envelop in and put each color inside where I can see them and keep them from being a messy jumble: Down the middle: Favorite canvas artwork by Sonya Lovely-Badgley and thanks Amy for letting me borrow your awesome paint can lid idea! My creepy bird phase: This is my time out corner...go ahead put me in time out, I dare ya! See that wooden mug holder thing with scissors on it? I borrowed that idea from a blogger from last years party, I wish I could remember who it was to leave a link: Below is my ink pad cabinet, in its former life it was one of those brown generic jewelry boxes. I painted it, used old papers to collage the drawer fronts, and added some rusty bits (that is one of my handmade rings and a fiber cuff on the glue brush holder): The drawers hold mini alphabet stamps and mini ink pads: Up top: The "cake" of vintage boxes and tins hold collage scraps. The cupcake fairy on top is one of my creations from a long ago class: These birds are some of the favorite pieces I have ever made: Another piece of artwork by Tina: One of my mixed media canvas' that is soon to fly away to its new home and a cereal box junk journal I just started to work on: Side to side: This is an older studio piece but I have added some more parts to it. Does it creep you out a little that they won't look you in the eye? My budding little grand-artists love to hang out in here too so I keep simple washable supplies on hand for them: A few pieces of my artwork and a beautiful seahorse tag made by my dear friend Bobbie: "Summer" and "Autumn" mixed media collage (Winter and Spring are still in the project drawer): An old art quilt that I found in a drawer the other day and decided to enjoy it once again: My newest art quilt, I will be doing a post on this one soon: More supplies for the grand-artist: This is a first painting by my grandson when he was very small. My daughter in law generously gave it to me because I begged for it. I mounted it on a canvas and added a border. Priceless! This is where I do a lot of my metalsmithing, soldering, encaustic work, and glass cutting and is a fairly new addition to the studio: This is a new addition, an inspiration board. It is a simple idea and something I had put off doing, just cork board in a frame. I have filled it with a sketch and elements that inspire a work in progress: Here is the work in progress: Both ends of the table are flanked by small bookcases filled with books and boxes and such: This shelf is a work in progress as I clean out the cabinets and move supplies around. The bottom shelf holds old metal lunch boxes: The contain rolls of ribbon, seam binding, craft tapes, and industrial type tapes: For double duty I drilled a holes in this one and inserted and threaded rod securing it with a nut on the ends after placing the spools of ribbon on the rod. I am looking for a square lunch box I like to do the same thing with washi tape: I have a few of these drawers and a couple of jars here and there with wonderful treasures just waiting to be made into something. I will stay away from Etsy and Ebay, I will stay away from Etsy and Ebay, I will stay away from Etsy and Ebay.....nah, I have no will power when it comes to trinkets: My studio really does have four sides not just three but somehow I neglected to photograph a big chunk in the middle of the opposite side, I will fill in those photos later. Anyway on the invisible desk you can't see I like to do my wire and bead work and fill my handmade bezels, as well as assemble jewelry: ( You can find some of these beauties in my Etsy Shop) If you would like to learn to make a Romantic Crazy Quilt Fiber Cuff like the one below, I have a free online class you can access HERE, a thank you gift to all my sweet friends: I love making bezels! Over the invisible desk you can't see me work at I have a cool hanging display/storage shelf that is mounted to the ceiling. I did manage to get one small glimpse of it: Beside the invisible desk is another supply area: A beautiful quilted bag by the talented Diane Knott filled with a flock of my fiber birds: Another sweet painting by the grand: EDIT ADDED: Here is the missing desk and storage space above it. I just got that darling little iron vanity chair from a favorite haunt, The Rusty Bucket, I need to upholster it and I am set to sew! My daughter gave me this little metal set of drawers. I keep little bits of this and that for making jewelry inside: I found this vintage stationary caddy in a flea market, it works perfect to hold my tools, the little hinged door on the bottom hides a divided area that holds my Dremel bits: Desk Drawers: Stationary & supplies (the top drawer on each side is currently empty until I can get some of jewelry supplies moved from the closet cart into them and the large drawer on bottom right holds files) Sanding supplies, misc. tools, containers for jewelry findings My favorite drawer in the whole studio, my nature collection drawer: Thank you for visiting! (click THIS LINK to return to the party listings) blessings, Sandy