The Studio

We will have lived in our house 10 years this coming November. That fact alone is STARTLING to me. And my darling husband (we'll be married 11 in October) has ALWAYS, ALWAYS let me do whatever I want to any room in our house. For years before having children we had our room, 2 guest rooms, and The 'Clubhouse'. Some of you reading this will smile or giggle with memories of The Clubhouse...mostly my girlfriends...and some of their husbands. It was essentially my dressing room...my hang out room...my pre-party room. My friends and I would gather for an occasion (birthday, bachelorette, holiday, etc) or no occasion at all and drink fruity, girly drinks or wine get ready, try on different outfits - back in the day before any of us had kids and all we had was disposable income to allow us to purchase many outfits for aforementioned occasions - we'd do our hair/makeup and spend what now seems like hours picking out shoes and purses and accessories. *sigh* those were fun days!!!

But I digress - so I had The Clubhouse...and then we decided to have children. So we transformed The Clubhouse back into the master bedroom and soon thereafter had our daughter. We kept the 2 bigger bedrooms as guest rooms for a while. And we had the baby in the smallest room. And then I got pregnant with my son so we decided that it would only be fair to give them the 2 biggest bedrooms that were left. So that left the smallest of the 4 bedrooms.

My little brother (younger by 9 years) decided (THANKFULLY!!! =) to move home from San Diego last winter and we had always told him that he could live with us. So he did...and we've had a blast. But this past weekend he moved into an apartment in Boston with his friends. So once again my darling, fabulous and wonderful husband didn't bat an eyelash when I said that I was taking the 4th room as my studio. So I'm out of the spider infested, musty, dark basement into a cozy room with lots of light (natural and lamps), lots of space - we need to add more shelving but otherwise it's great. Nothing matches but we're using what furniture we have as I definitely can't afford to buy anything more right now. And what I have works - pretty much.

Here's a shot from the door looking in:
From the area nearest the closet - as you can see, I've brought my children's craft table up so they can enjoy time with me (while I get things done) drawing, painting or whatever crafts they feel in the mood for.
This was a little purchase at Target this weekend (29.99). It has 7 - 12x12 'drawers' that pull out and are self enclosed. The top one holds all of my SU! designer paper, drawers 2-4 house all other brands of DP, drawer 5 has solid color 12x12 cardstock, drawer 6 has all of my DP scraps and drawer 7 has all of my solid color scraps. Labelled accordingly...of course.
An almost overflowing file box with all of my SU! cardstock...it is THE BEST paper available...anywhere.

This cabinet has been in my husband's family for 3 generations - I think (this MAY be the 4th). It's designed for children's clothing, however, we're not in need of it presently for that as we have adequate storage in our kid's rooms so I snagged it from my daughter's room. On top I've got some ribbon storage (although I'm seeking a better solution), a basket with envelopes of varying shapes and colors, a basket of pre-done cards - I will eventually get a display board for these, my Stampendous stamps - I just like looking at them, and a few other misc odds and ends. My Fiskars scissor collection.

My jars in order as they are displayed- clips/pins/binder clips - small stamps - ribbon scraps - tiny paper scraps (yes, I save EVERYTHING) - Prima flowers - metal edged tags - puffy paint - and misc embellishments.
My reference area. I find inspiration EVERYWHERE. So I've got the SU! catalogs (this years and last), the following magazines: Real Simple, Cookie, Child (no longer in print), Parents, Papercrafting, Scrapbook..something...and many random catalogs. Also displayed: more ribbon from a ribbon share from Jo, my Cuttlebug, my box of punches and my portable paper trimmer (I have one of those table top heavy duty ones (to the area left of this picture) but for some reason it didn't make into any of the pictures).

Office supplies (i love post-its), my biz cards, works in progress, my box of ink pads (I've got to get the SU! ink pad storage system) and my address book. Oh and a shout out to Poland Spring of course!

This little cup sits right in front of where I work...it's got my snips, my bone folder, my favorite pencil, rubber scissors, regular scissors, pinking shears and band aids.
I'm a notorious pen thief...and I admit it. So I have more pens then an office supply store. =) And for some reason it makes me happy!! But when I was digging out my attic over the last few weeks I found my caddy for my Prismacolor markers. I bought it YEARS ago here. When I used to work in the city I would frequent this store at LEAST twice a week on my lunch break. But anyway - I have a small stash of the Prismacolor markers and various other brands. This caddy is great as it holds a ton of pens, pencils and misc bits.

This is the piece of furniture I was referring to earlier. It has 4 drawers on the left and on the right an open space where kids clothing can be hung on a bar that slides in and out. I may figure out how to use that for ribbon spools. I may hang them with binder rings.

Another shot of my kiddies craft table. My daughter (almost 3) loves nothing more than to turn the light on and off. She thinks it's very grown up that she can do it herself.
I've stashed all of my SU! stamp sets in the 4 drawers. I still have a bit of room left for my ever growing collection!

I have many of my 'alterables' living on the right hand side. Composition notebooks, frames, tins, etc.

So - that's my room! Yes, I know how SUPER lucky I am to have a room all to myself. And again, I thank my DH for all of his help in getting this room up and running so fast. He's amazing, supportive, helpful and wonderful. And he never complains. I'm a very lucky girl.