Studio Tour (Image heavy!)

Hi there friends!

I recently changed the studio up and did a little reorganizing. Wanna see?

Here's a walk around the room first. I really need to see what I have or I will forget I have it. I love these metal racks!

From the doorway

On the right there are sections for flower jars, vintage bits and bobs and Sizzix and embossing. The bins have embellishments and crystals, and the bottom shelf is jewelry related.

The middle section is all about papers. The 12x12 stacking bins came from a close-out sale at my mother-in-law's local scrapbook shop. The bins hold either favorite paper pads or paper lines, and there are about 60 small pads. I don't have a problem, really...

The small rack holds a Clip-It-Up and the white wall ribbon rack is from Making Memories. I have a love/hate relationship with ribbon, or rather the storage of it. Below is my new system, which seems to work.

After the Making Memories wall rack is a window, then this baker's rack. It holds most of my liquids/wet stuff. The vintage two-tiered stamp stand holds ink blending tools - a fantastic find off Ebay for $15.

Next is my work table. It's 36" x 60" and another incredible find - this time off Craigslist. :) The pile on the left seems like a mess, but it's perfect for me. The vintage scale was used by Grandma to weigh my father-in-law when he was a wee lad. How sweet! The sewing machine drawers were salvaged from a machine I bought at an estate sale and used as a table for a few years. Once Grandma's came to us, I sold my old one on Craigslist (without drawers). The scissors and such are on a glass lazy susan found at Tuesday Morning.

On the wall shelves are swap items, cards from friends and a few things I've made; including my first tag which has been repinned on Pinterest over one hundred times. (I stopped counting the emails...)

Behind the door is a shoe rack that holds wood mounted stamps and paper punches.

Below the desk is an Iris rack with stuff... seldom-used clear stamps, stamping supplies, adhesives and bins with assorted themed embellishments.

And the closet. You don't get to see in there since you'd probably want to gouge out your eyes it's far from organized. *sigh* There's a slightly smaller metal rack and tons of built-in shelves, but none of it makes sense yet. One day it will be a shipping station... The little wood table still needs a paint job and knobs - it holds overflow adhesives and Stickles as well as hot glue supplies and a shipping scale.

(More details after this jump...)

One thing you'll notice is that most everything is set up to carry to my work table, whether it's a basket full of Stickles, paint, colored pencils or metal embellishments. The only thing I really don't move is the Sizzix die cutter. I bring the dies to my work table but do the cutting right where the die cutter sits.

I am in love with these Darice bins from the craft stores. Each compartment has a curved bottom so it's easy to remove small items. I use these bins for all kinds of small embellishments, charms as well as crystals, beads and findings for my pins.

I use a Clip-It-Up for embellishments and flowers (above) and baskets for larger embellishments (below). Out of sight really means "out of mind" for me, so having everything so visible helps a lot!

Ahhh, paper. I love it so. I've cleared out my collection to papers I actually want and will use, or willingly hoard just to ooh and ahhh over.

Bazzill is my favorite solid card stock. I really don't have enough, but this will have to do. :) I wanted to show you how I handle scraps - see how there are two labels for each color group? One is on a pocket that holds scraps of each color group, the other is just a separator. If I need a smaller bit of paper I always look in the scrap pockets first.

There are about a million ways to store ribbons in blogland, right? I think I've finally found the best way for me. I mostly use crochet lace and seam binding, but I do use other ribbons and want them on hand. This rack originally had the dowels and I put all the ribbon spools on like a good girl. That didn't work for a variety of reasons so I pulled everything off and it stayed mostly empty for months, except for the plastic jars and bottom dowel. The jars have always been useful for small scraps as well as all the seam binding. I added the dowel on the bottom and use Clip-It-Up clips with the plastic protectors for the crochet.

I bought a few of these small rectangular plastic bins at Bed, Bath and Beyond to test out color coordinating. So far, it's pretty useful. I need more to sort all the ribbons and laces hidden in the closet, but this is what they look like in action:

Pretty cool, huh? If I want pink, all I do is grab the pink bin and bring it to my work surface. The ribbons are loosely bound with a rubber band, just enough to hold together but not to tight to add marks.

The last thing is cling stamp storage. These books are from Hobby Lobby and hold all my Tim Holtz stamps as well as a few other cling stamps and rubber stamps.I found heavyweight clear plastic to make my own pages but haven't done it yet. There are a lot more cling stamps under the work table that need a home.

Wow, I think that's it. If you have any questions shoot me an email or comment here. Thanks for visiting me in the studio today!

Cheers,
Susan