From Mess to Best

I tend to put off organizing projects. It always turns into a huge “looks like there was a struggle here” mess. When I do decide to delve into a major revamp of my little world, I go whole hearted into it. 

So yesterday my plans were to list my new jewelry on my Etsy shop, but when I came into the studio I had the energy and drive to do some organizing. 

This area is used for art and paper crafting. The cart by the table

was a 50% off purchase from JoAnn and I really like it. 

It has all my paint, sketch books, markers and crafting papers.

I did bring in a smaller folding table to do all my art projects on. The glaring white top wasn’t a happy look for me so I decided to grunge up the top with alcohol ink. This was a gamble but I felt it would be a good look. I put the ink on the table surface then smeared it with a plastic glove like you do dishes with.

This area is used for packaging up sales for mailing. 

I also keep a few photo props on the shelf under the table.

Those are my antique sewing machines on the shelf.

I took the big plastic folding table out and now I'm using this small

wood table for the computer. This was my computer table for a 

good while till I moved one of the craft show tables in here so 

there would be room for my Cricut. 

I have put the Cricut into retirement till

I decide if it's a keeper or needs to find a new home. 

I have my Etsy mail scale and jewelry tray on the filing cabinet. 

This is where I price my jewelry, post it to social media and

add items to my Etsy shop. 

My bench didn't change too much, just more sorting and organizing

my materials as they come in and grow to need more space. I did

replace my lighting a few months ago when JoAnn had a sale on Ott Lites. 

These are much smaller but put out a lot of light. 

So now each section of this little room serves a purpose and has been streamlined as much as possible. I do have a lot of craft supplies. I "need" them cause I never know which direction my creative efforts will take. 

I might decide to use my mixed media supplies in jewelry or my wire in a fiber art design. So it all needs to be accessible. So that is the problem - too much stuff in a small space. I have a 3 bedroom house and 2 bedrooms and parts of the garage are full of crafting supplies and tools. Yes, I’ve gone over the normal limit and into crazy crafting overload on materials. I have no problem with it either. 

Olivia isn't too happy with the smaller computer table. 

She still has a perch by the window for bird watching

with a comfy blanket. She needs to be right in the middle

of near everything I do. Yes I've spoiled her bad. 

When she jumps up in the middle of the desk or bench

I just stop and pet her. Then when she is happy again

she goes to play or nap. Alls good.

A New Sculpture and the Sketch Book Project

At Christmas Jack gave me a sculpture he did and I was so pleased. I asked him where did you get the idea for this. He looked at me kinda funny and said it’s one of your drawings. Oh well so much for my memory. This is a special gift I will treasure always of course it was made just for me and from one of my drawings. So special.

This did get me thinking about my stack of sketch books I had laying around. So how to minimize this stack of books into a much smaller collection of my sketches? 

Here are the only hard back books I had. One had almost no drawings

 in it and the other was 3/4 used. So these will be the home

for all the other drawings from the multiple little spiral bound books laying about 

I gathered a few of my mixed media supplies and started 

ripping apart all the spiral bound sketch books.

2 days later

So now every drawing I have done in the last 15 years that I wanted to keep is in those

2 hard back sketchbooks. I used old sheet music and scrapbook papers to cover old drawings I wasn't too fond of. 

Even thou I try to keep my ideas for jewelry or other projects out of my daily sketch book sometimes that isn't handy when I want to sketch something out before the idea runs off into never land. So my sketchbooks end up with a lot of different things in them. They tell a story of what was going on in my life at that time. I try to date everything, but don't always. When I looked back over these drawings it brought back a ton of memories, that had more to do with the time I drew the drawing than the drawing itself.  

Enjoy each day and keep close to your heart what is

really important in your life. 

God, Family and Friends

and a good comfy box