My workspace

Hello there! I was going through some old posts lately and noticed that my work space post was somewhat outdated. Well, I've done it more than a year ago, so I guess it's natural it's outdated! 

What hasn't changed is the space itself. Nor my style to craft while standing. I still craft in our living room and quite frankly have been invading more space from there. I usually make my pages on that black Expedit shelf but when I'm recording a video I then move to the living room table as it has more space for the camera. I very seldom sit down when working on a page and like in the previous post, I tend to lay flat on my belly on the floor to do the journaling. I have no idea why. I just usually end up there for the writing part. 

So back to my space. The big element that has changed is the Malm drawer into the Expedit shelf. We actually did a swap between those two - the drawer went to the bedroom and shelf to living room. Now my husband has some place to put all his guitar pieces and other music related stuff and I have more storage for the scrapbooking stuff. The difference is also of course that now my hobby is much more visible in our apartment. While most of the stuff in the shelf is in boxes or other storage, it's still quite visible. But on the other hand, why should it been in hiding as the people coming to our home probably now about my passion and hobby. 

Starting from the left the shelves hold the dies and stencils and underneath those letter stickers and embellishments like flowers and metal trinkets. Next duo holds DT stuff in boxes and underneath 2012 Project Life album, art journals and a few minis. Next one is totally visible in the photo above - on top there's all my scrapbooking papers in trays and underneath albums and finished pages waiting to be put in the albums. The last two have A4 sized drawers. On top, two stacked on top of each other, hold my small paper scraps organized by color. The one on the bottom holds my stamps, other than those of 3rd Eye. On top of that drawer there's some printing paper and other items like that.

On the counter top there's always my Big Shot, two little plastic drawers with small embellishments like buttons and a bowl full of washi tapes. I also keep a small easel style thing with a recent project on it and the Phoenix on there. Otherwise the latter would have found its way to recycling already, but it's so perfect for taking photos as the bird can hold a 12x12" sheet up! 

 

The white writing desk has remained the same throughout the years. It's a gift from my late grandpa, made by him, so it's very dear to me. It used to be just plain wood color with lacquer, but I painted it white to fit in better with the rest of the furniture. On top of that desk there's still some supplies in small containers and also the Moppe drawer I did in one Inspired by challenge (link). The drawer holds some of my embellishments divided by color and on top of that there's a few Sodalicious stamps, my business cards and Project Life date stamp. Next to Moppe is a big bowl full of embossing powders, most of them from Wow! Embossing Powders. Next to that is a container full of Gelatos and near the edge a box with Prima chalkedgers and also a glass with rolls of twine. 

The writing desk opens up and inside has been quite little change since last year. I still store my scissors, inks and double sided tape there as well as paperclips. Please check the previous post for the open up image (link). The Copics are still in the same stop, then the Archivals but underneath them are nowadays the scissors, double sided tapes and pencils. On the other side all of the top slots are full of Distress Inks and underneath are just foam squares. The flair buttons, paperclips and Prima wire sit on the desk at the moment. 

There's also three drawers underneath the fold down table - two little ones and one big one. The little one on the right holds my punches - I don't have many of those. The one on the left has PanPastels, oil pastels and silicone molds. The bottom drawer has my "junk" for the mixed media projects. I mean lamps, puzzle pieces and that sort of thing.

Partly because of the flip between the drawer and the shelf I needed to get the mists away from our bedroom where they previously were. So now all of the mists, alcohol inks and watercolors are in the Råskog trolley. The top layer is reserved for the mists and the two levels below hold mix of different paint media. The acrylics and gessos still occupy our bathroom. It's also home to my brushes, gel medium and heat gun. I do most of the messy stuff there as I don't want paint marks on our living room furniture. 

There's a lot of text here so thank you if you managed all the way through! I hope you enjoyed the little tour! If you have anything to ask, please leave me a comment or mail me! Thank you!

 

Inspired by... Moppe

It's again the 10th of the month and time for the "Inspired by" creation! But what is Inspired by? Every month darling Marsha and me choose a subject to be inspired by. It can be a movie (link), an item (link), a designer (link), a painting (link) or a music style (link). It can be anything! Then we make something inspired by that theme or a piece of art and share it with you and each other on the 10th of the month.

This time we went (again) with something different! We've done altered items before and were thinking about making one again. Marsha had visited Ikea and threw in the idea of using a Moppe drawer as the base for the creation. I was immediately in - not that I knew what I was doing, but I thought the item had a big potential.

Then came the hardest part. Trying to get an idea about what to do. Should I take it apart? Or use it as it is? I had the Moppe in my closet and kept thinking about the ideas how to be inspired by it. My first idea was to use it as a base for a mixed media work but the I came to think about the practicality and also what I would do with the finished piece.

Then one afternoon, once again trying to find "a little pink something" from my stash of embellishments it hit me. When I'm on a hunt for an embellishment it's always using the color as the key factor, not shape nor brand or even the type! I'm hunt for "pink things" or "yellow embellishments" rather than "a sticker by My Mind's Eye". So what I needed to do, is to divide my embellishments according to color rather by the way they were before - scattered in different storage by the type. In comes the Moppe!

As my Moppe had four drawers, I used the same rule than in my drawers for little pieces of scrapbooking papers, sorted by color. Yellows, greens and browns to one drawer, blues, turquoises and lilacs to the second, reds, oranges and pink in third and blacks, whites, greys and metallics to the fourth.

 

I wanted to use the colors inside the drawers outside too but keep the over appearance harmonious. So I chose to go with a white background and painted the Moppe with gesso first. Then I worked one drawer at a time and created colorful clusters to them. All of the drawers have some kind of mixed media inspired background but still each of them is different. The white one has a white doily glued to it using gel medium, some chalk inked dots and just a few flicks of mist. The other three have mists, but I added the same media to the drawers differently. To red one I just sprayed directly, to the blue I mimicked watercolors and for the green/yellow I used a stencil.

The clusters are done with different embelishments like stickers, diecuts and buttons. They all have an inspirational quote in them as well. "Let's go anywhere - destination anywhere", "Onward & Upward", "Keep Calm and Take a Photo" and "Carpe Diem".

 

Then came the most tricky part - to actually divide the embellishments into the drawers. This meant I needed to do a bit of cutting every here and there, but finally I got the drawers looking like the one underneath. The stickers, chipboards, brads and other embellishments are all in a lovely mix. I kept some of the ones I tend to grab first or use in special occasions separate. The ones in their own storage are flair buttons, plain chipboard embellishments, flowers and Prima 3 D embellishments - like the resin shapes and the Mechanicals. So much easier to use!

But enough about my babbling - let's go see what Marsha has made this time! Just follow this link!

My craft space

I did a bit of a spring cleaning in my craft space and thought to show you what it looks like. I say space, but actually it's just a table in our living room as I don't have a separate craft room. I do all my layouts on our living room table as it's higher than the table that stores some of my supplies and I tend to scrap standing. The only part when I do sit down is journaling. And to be honest - most of the time I journal laying flat on my belly on the floor.

Tein hiukan kevät siivoa askartelutilassani ja ajattelin esitellä, miltä se näyttää. Puhun tilasta, mutta oikeastaan se on vain pöytä olohuoneessamme, sillä minulla ei ole erillistä askarteluhuonetta. Teen kaikki sivuni olohuoneen pöydällämme, koska se on korkeampi kuin klaffipöytäni ja tykkään tehdä sivuni seisten. Oikeastaan ainoa juttu, jonka teen askartelussa istuen on tarinointi. Tosin itseasiassa teen senkin aika usein muuten kuin istuen - makaan lattialla mahallani ja kirjoitan.

So here's my table. It was birch colored before, but we painted it white to go better in our livingroom. The table is a gift from my grandpa, he had made it himself so it's very dear to me.

On top of the table are some of my decorations and my washitapes. The little plastic drawers hold my metal embellishments, cameos and that sort of decorations, pearls and buttons. Next to it are some of my favourite stamps - Sodalicious, Stromsvigt and American Crafts date stamps. Then there's the twine rolls and a glass jar holding majority of my brads. In front of them are the Ecoline colors and Indian Ink.

Before the little drawers were inside the table, but then I didn't use them almost at all. Hopefully they come in use more often now!

Tässä on pöytäni. Se oli ennen koivunvärinen, mutta maalasimme sen valkoiseksi, jotta kaluste sopii paremmin muuhun sisustukseemme. Klaffipöytä on isoisäni minulle lahjaksi tekemä, joten sillä on tunnearvoa.

Pöydän päällä on jotain koristeita ja washiteippini. Pienet muovilipastot pitävät sisällään metallikoristeet, cameot ja niitä vastaavat, puolihelmet ja napit. Seuraavassa purkissa on lempileimojani - Sodalicious, Stromsvigt ja American Craftsin päivämääräleimat. Seuraavana ovat leipurinnyörit ja isossa lasipurkissa haaraniitit. Näiden edessä on Ecoline vesivärit ja musta muste.

Pikkulipastot olivat ennen pöydän sisällä enkä käyttänyt niissä olevia koristeita juurikaan. Toivottavasti tavarat tulevat nyt paremmin käyttöön kun ovat näkyvillä.

When you open the table up, you'll see this: scissors, inks and douple sided tape and some of my "go to" supplies like paperclips. Starting from the top left are my Copics, then the Archival Inks and watermark ink and below them StazOn inks and Pearl Makers. On the other side there are flair buttons, Distress Inks and below them scissors, spare paper cutter blades and pencils. On the table top are the adhesive and some decorations.I kept all the basic supplies either to the right or the center as I'm right handed.

Kun pöydän avaa, näky on tämä: saksia, musteita ja kaksipuolista teippiä sekä jotain koristeita. Ylhäältä vasemmalta lähtien lokerikoissa on Copicit, niiden vieressä Archival Ink ja vesileimamustetyynyt ja alla StazOn musteet sekä Pear Maker-kynät. Toisella puolella on flair-napit, Distress Ink tyynyt ja niiden alla sakset, paperileikkurin varaterät sekä kynät. Pöytäpinnalla on teipit sekä liimat. Kaikki perustarvikkeet ovat joko oikealla tai keskellä, koska olen oikeakätinen.

The drawers underneath the table top hold my punches and some art media like oil pastels and PanPastels. I don't have many punches so they fit quite nicely inside the drawer. The border punches are at the bigger shelf, where I store my mists, too.

Laatikoissa klaffin alla on mm. kuvioleikkurini sekä jotain värejä, kuten öljypastellit ja PanPastellit. Minulla ei ole montaakaan kuvioleikkuria, joten ne sopivat laatikkoon hyvin. Boordileikkurit löytyvät hyllystä, jossa säilytän myös mistini.

This shelf is in our bedroom and it holds all my mists and some other paint media as well as stencils, paper scraps and finished minialbums. The minialbums are on the top shelf. Underneath that are my scrapbooking magazines, dies and an album that holds my stencils and masks. 

Third shelf from the top has these drawers. The ones on the left hold my paper scraps, organized by the color: reds, oranges and pinks in the first, black, white and grey on the second, greens, yellows and browns and blue, turquoise and purple at the bottom. The drawes in the middle hold my stamps. The scrapbooking ones are on the top and card making at the bottom. I rarely open the below one, but the upper one is opened to almost every page I make. Besides the drawers are my card bases and some old books aquired for crafting.

The bottom shelf has my mists, alcohol inks, glitter glues and embossing powders. Almost all my mists are from Tattered Angels nowadays. The only one not from them is Studio Calico's white one, which I grab when I need white splashes quickly and don't want to go to the bathroom and use gesso instead.

Oh, and those two boxes on top of the shelf hold my older layouts that don't fit anymore into the five albums I have at hand.

Tämä hylly on puolestaan makuuhuoneessamme ja siinä on mm. kaikki mistini, paperisilppu, sablunat ja valmiit minialbumit. Minialbumit ovat ylimmällä hyllyllä. Niiden alla olevalla hyllyllä ovat skräppilehdet, stanssit ja kansio, jossa säilytän maskini ja sablunani.

Kolmannella  hyllyllä ylhäältä päin on tuollaisia laatikostoja. Niissä on kuviopaperipalaseni, jotka ovat enemmän koristekäyttöön kuin skräppäykseen. Paperit on järjestetty väreittäin: punaiset, oranssit ja pinkit ylimmässä, harmaat, mustat ja valkoiset seuraavassa, keltaiset, vihreät ja ruskeat toiseksi alimmassa ja siniset, turkoosit ja lilat alimmassa. Vieressä olevassa laatikostossa on leimani. Ylemmässä on skräppileimat, alemmassa korttileimat - lähinnä siis tekstileimat ja väritettävät kuvat. Ylälaatikko avautuu usein, lähes jokaisen sivun kohdalla, mutta alalaatikkoa käytän harvoin. Laatikostojen vieressä ovat korttipohjat sekä vanhoja kirjoja askartelukäyttöön.

Alimmalla hyllyllä on mistit, alkoholimusteet, kimalleliimat ja kohojauheet. Lähes kaikki mistini ovat nykyisin Tattered Angelsilta, se ainokainen, joka ei ole sieltä, on Studio Calicon valkoinen. Sitä käytän, jos haluan sivuun valkoisia roiskeita nopeasti enkä halua kipittää kylpyhuoneeseen gessoilemaan niitä.

Ai niin, kuvan yläreunassa näkyvät, hyllyn päällä olevat laatikot pitävät sisällään leiskojani. Niissä on vanhemmat sivuni, jotka eivät enää mahdu käsillä oleviin viiteen albumiin.

Then there's still this basket, which is in our bathroom where I do most of my gessoing and spraying. The basket holds my gesso and gel medium jars, modelling paste, acrylic paints, water misters and brushes. The basket is easy to use and keep organized.

Hopefully you liked the tour! Thank you for looking and if you have any questions, please drop me a comment!

Sitten on vielä tämä kori, joka on kylppärissämme, jossa teen suurimman osan mistailuista ja gessoiluista. Korissa on gesso- ja gel medium -ämpärit, kohopasta, akryylimaalit, vesimisterit ja siveltimet. Kori on helppo nostaa esille tarpeen mukaan ja pitää järjestyksessä.

Toivottavasti piditte kierroksesta! Kiitos katsomisesta ja jos tulee kysyttävää, ne voi naputella kommenttilaatikkoon tai laittaa vaikka sähköpostilla!