Thursday, March 17, 2005

Re-organizing continues....

It is going to be yet another beautiful day here in the Ohio Valley. The sun is shining and the birds are still singing their song. We hit the high 40's here yesterday and it appears this is a trend that will continue here throughout the end of the week.

This means that I will be able to move the VHS cabinet out to the studio for storing my UM stamps in cd cases within. I will have some preplanning to do as I'll be losing one shelving unit although my photo boxes should also fit inside on the shelves allowing to reserve the door space for the cd cases. There is also the option of taking the shelving unit apart and finding a home for it elsewhere within the studio.

Yesterday, Don & I made yet another road trip to The Container Store where I purchased 2 more clear acrylic jewelry organizers. I am so loving these containers for storing my embellishments as each comes with an attached clear lid as well. This makes them so easy to stack and to see within each container without the need to actually open them to see what is inside. These additional 2 containers provide me with a total of 7; which should allow me to have the same storage and get some of my other misc. items out and having them all in one place. They also should provide me with a little room to grow. I like having a sense of unity within the studio and have found using the same storage consistently assists to provide that.

I looked at another option for 12x12 paper while visiting Archiver's. The Cropper Hopper Vertical storage unit, however, I quickly changed my mind re: purchasing it. The main reason for me was lack of shelving or countertop space to store them. I'm all for having storage that works although I like to use the cabinets along the west wall simply because it hides a lot of the clutter. I'm not one of those artist's who needs to visually see what supplies they have. Having an assigned area for supplies, I know what is where and believe me things get used! So, I decided instead of purchasing more storage for paper, to use it! I'm shocked I actually walked out of there without purchasing one sheet of paper!

I did purchase a few more of the Slick Writer pens. Both black in a fine and a broad tip. These pens are so versatile, they'll write on anything! Vellum and transparencies are some of my favorite surfaces to use them on. Another purchase was the Creative Imaginations Skipping Stones; not a new release from CHA - they've been available for a while, I felt they would be the perfect accent for a nature journal cover embellishment. I'm hopeful that I will get out more this summer and do some sketching and watercoloring. I also purchased a small storage box from KoKuyo, designed for floppy disk storage; I plan to begin using it for cutting up my smaller scraps of cardstock for ATC blanks.

I'm still stuck on the organization of all my ribbon spools. I've seen some really cool storage ideas within other's creative spaces. Everything from wrapping around the old-fashion slip over clothes pins decoratively displayed in baskets to wrapped around slivers of cardstock. Personally, I like keeping them on the spools. For me this means less time winding them around something else and it prevents any creases of the ribbon. The recent CK featured an article which used dowel rods inside a photo storage box which held two different sized spools of the ribbon. Larger grommets where set along the longer sides of the box with bits of ribbon strung through for easy viewing. The lid also would provide protection from light and dust. This may be an option I'll explore further at a later date.

Another challenge with organizing is for all my large sheets of watercolor, handmade, and imported papers. Currently my large sheets for personal use are stored in the larger mailing tubes, while I rolled scraps up and placed them within a galvanized bucket. I'm uncertain of how I desire to display sheets of this once I begin buying for retail sales. Guess we will either create a free-standing unit or hand some decorative curtain rods on the door to the upstairs storage area. The paper could be folded over and spaced appropriately to allow for the additional thickness. I'm certain we'll come up with something that will work!

The good news is my studio is clean! I've a little dusting of the shelf to do before it gets too out of hand but overall it isn't bad. The tables are clean and cleared off of all items so I can work on putting some of the supplies still in boxes into separate groupings until I finally get them where they belong. There is still boxes within the house and attic that never quite got moved out there from where actually made the move, I keep hesitating to move them, LOL! I think I desire to keep the re-organizing in the small managable chunks that make this do-able vs. one huge overwhelming pile!

My intention today is to get the Canson Mi-Tientes cut down for the Journey Journal RR. Add those pages to the book, package it and get it on its journey! After that, I'm hopeful to begin attacking the boxes of supplies yet to be tackled and get some organizing done. Every box that gets emptied is a step in the right direction!!!! :)

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