A More Spacious Studio

Well, it all started innocently enough, as these things often do. In recent months, it has seemed that the studio (and the whole apartment for that matter) has been increasingly overrun with stuff. The thing about stuff mountains in the studio, is that it makes it incredibly difficult to work in there with all of it in my way. When inspiration strikes, I need to get in and get down to business. The ironing board moves in and becomes a permanent fixture and now there is not even room to move. So last week, I did a little reorganization. Nothing too grand or special, just putting things away, getting honest about what will never get used and deciding to donate some things. And it looked great. Clean and ready to be put to work for the upcoming holiday craft-a-thon.

But then came Soul Weekend. Have I told you about it? It's great! Soul Weekend is my family's attempt to schedule intentional downtime. Once a month, we commit an entire weekend as plan-free. We do our absolute best to keep it that way and take those two blissful days as they come. It is a glorious respite and much needed time for all of us to connect and engage in activities that truly nurture our, well, our souls. Also, it is incredibly fun because spontaneity is born out of the very nature of creating space to just let things happen. So on Friday night of Soul Weekend, Ryan mentioned that the Rose Bowl flea market was on Sunday, and that was all I needed to get my juices flowing. How could I rearrage the studio to make it more simple, more calm? What type of organization was needed so everything could have a place and the room did not become a behemoth of overwhelm, not to mention paper, mail, hair ties and cat toys?

Here's what I came up with. Remember the red table that we scored at a garage sale for $10? I decided to bring it in from the garage and exchange it for my much larger desk that held lots of paper, my scanner, books and included ample space for bits and bobs from all over the house to convene.

This space is just blogging and fabric designing from now on. No more grocery list making, notebook piling, CD collecting going on here. And I mean it, too. See the bookshelf in the corner? That is a score from the Rose Bowl. It is tin but looks like wood. It is super simple, but does the job of getting all of our books out of the living area. They used to be on a shelf right at Rylie's height and right near her toys. Many days (everyday, really) the books would come off the shelves into giant heaps on the living room floor. So, yeah, that was not working.


I used to have this inspiration bulletin board inside a frame, but it was too heavy and was not steady when hung on the wall. So it was sitting on the floor and taking up lots of space. Not to mention, it was in Rylie's reach, so all of my pins were at the very top. I discarded the frame, and nailed the actual bulletion board to the wall. I also opened it up for fresh inspiration, love that!

Something else had me itching for new storage solutions last week. My yardage of Domestic Bliss arrived! (More on that next week, I promise) We found these wonderful, wooden drawers from an old file cabinet at the Bowl. Stacked on top of eachother, they make a great home for all of my fabric that I have designed for Moda.


Look, the handles are still attached and everything. They are great drawers and I can imagine lots of uses for them, if say, I ever need to build a custom closet for all of my fabrics.

And I finally picked up an vintage suitcase to hold all of my felt and old clothing that I plan to upcycle. The climber's among us love it!

Perhaps the best fix of all is the one not even interesting enough to photograph. The other half of the room is completely empty! That's right! Abundant space to move, work, dream, create - I don't know, dance if I want to. It is precious, rife with opportunity! Oh the possibilities!