Studio Makeover

Every studio I've found has it's own challenges that seem intertwined with the art that's created in it. You have the supplies you use every day, the art that's in progress as well as the art that's completed, the supplies that you keep for the future because you know you'll use them as well as the supplies that you keep just because you might, someday, find you need them. There's also the items of inspiration, the little bits of things that you keep because of the idea they sparked, or the memories they hold. Often, there's an inspiration board, piles of old sketchbooks or journals, and photographs. Maybe you have a collection of old books, or new books, or a collection of magazines that you store for future inspiration. What you have, what you hold dear, is unique to you.

Studios are unique but it is fun and helpful I believe, to see how other artists have solved their particular studio issues. Lately I've had the opportunity to do a bit of a "makeover" of my studio room that has made it much more usable. The problems I've had with my room are primarily...
a) not enough storage space
b) no usable work space
c) no place to put projects in process other then the middle of the floor
d) no comfortable place to sit and work
e)way way too overwhelming because of the sheer amount of stuff- I need to simplify big time.
f) hard to find things when I needed them, I often found myself buying something only to find that very thing in my closet a few weeks later.
g) inspiration was lost since I never wanted to be around it

We had new trim installed in the house a couple of weeks ago and my husband made me move out all the stuff that was stuffed into a corner, or piled up on other things out of the room. We  took this opportunity to wade through things quite a bit, and  to move out my old drawing table and replace it with a long, sleek new table from IKEA. Placed in front of the window it's really quite a charming place to sit and write or sew. My old file cabinet went into the closet and opened up another wall. From the garage I pulled an old bookshelf that I brought in and I placed all my jars of buttons, trims, embroidery floss, corks etc. onto it's shelves. It also holds some of my smaller canvases, and some small bins of odds and ends. Amazing the difference it made just to find a place for all those things. That opened up some of the shelves of my IKEA Expedit bookshelf so I had some freedom to shuffle things around in that a bit more. I'm still in need of a small undertable storage piece but I've got my eye on a really inexpensive piece from IKEA that will then hold my inks, my stamp carving supplies, and my rubber and cling stamps. So I'm feeling optimistic. Although filled it doesn't overwhelm me and I really enjoy being in there. One of my lingering problems was storage for my spools of ribbon. I had no good way to store them and yet wanted them visible and accessible. The solution I came up with for that problem is pretty fun and is actually my next tutorial. So thank you for visiting my studio today, and I hope to see you back soon for that how-to!