PARTY TIME

Well it is party time again. What kind of party you ask? Well it is a party to show off and share the spaces we use to CREATE. Yes you can get some peeks and glimpses into everyones personal space that is used to create their treasures. Some create for business, some for hobby but I am sure all for the love and fun of it. You may find some ideas that you can use in your own space. So, after looking at mine head on over to Karen's at My Desert Cottage to see her space and many others. Now enjoy the tour.

I know, I know you are saying- what the heck that is a dining room at Christmas time. And well you'd be right. It is or was my dining room. But after looking at it sit empty most of the year merely to be a room for a couple of big family meals and a room to decorate for such times I decided with the blessing of my family to commandeer it into my craft studio or space. Studio sounds so professional to me and I am clearly not professional as you will see.

This is my space to create. Please ignore some of the mess but I am in the midst of getting ready for a show the beginning of October with my sister- yes we are taking the leap to fulfill a dream of being creative and sell our treasures.  This is a view looking in from the Butlers Pantry - which is being converted to my home office but that is another story. My sister made the letters for me that say PLAYTIME.  I wanted to be reminded that I am creating for a job so to speak but that it always must be playtime or it has lost its spark.  The cabinets over to the left are old upper kitchen cabinets (we're demoing the kitchen so figured repupose for storage). They will get redone to be beautiful after October. But for now they are doing their job. In the back left corner are all my rolls of upholstery fabric..love them. Also there is a store wire rack to hold all my scrappy paper in that mess . :)

 

This is the other side of the room with the fireplace- yeah how many of you can say you have a fireplace in your space? Seriously, though my kitchen island will go there when we take it out. That corner to the right is the kids space. I felt it was very important to allow my little boy and girl room to create on their own. They join me all the time to make their own treasures. With so many cutbacks in our schools I wanted to be sure that art and the creative process would not be lost on my children. And believe me they seem to have more time than I do to use this room.

 

This is the view from the hallway..it shows the back workspace under the wonderful windows that bring in sooooo much sunshine in the afternoon. It makes the room quite hot so need to come up with some treatments for those windows. I also have cabinets under those windows in that nook. It holds all my metals, woods, florals, and such that need to be worked on.

Notice I haven't gotten around to taking down the very formal window coverings...hmmm Need to come up with something fun there. Oh have to do that later on.

 

This is another view of the playtime wall. It has bookcases that span the wall and meet an old library drawer unit at the window. The drawer unit holds all my small scrap book stuff..and the wall of bookcases holds all the other scrapbook and paper products. See a couple of stools I am working on for my booth in October?

A closer shot of the wall of paper filled bookcases. Please excuse the mess. I just got this room back to somewhat of a working place after putting in the kitchen cabinets and well some is just "put" there to be organized a bit more.

 
This is my cabinet full of fabric. I'd like to say it has a great organizational aspect but not really. It is sectioned off between clothing fabric and upholstery and then by color..that is as good as it gets here.

 
Here is a storage area I am quite proud of. I love to display but in this room it needs to be functional also..So I found this bird cloche at TJMaxx and it is used to hold all my fat quarters..Beauty and storage how fun. I also love and adore old mason jars so they store anything I can get into them- buttons, embroidery thread, you name it.

 

And my fave storage item is the springs from my daughters antique iron baby bed. It is my inspiration board. I just clip ideas onto it and think of her as a baby everytime I see it. Also being iron it holds all those cool magnetic little tins.

Lastly is my outdoor creative workshop. Okay yeah it is a tarp in front of my husbands workshop. He didn't really want me painting in the workshop so my dad erected this for me and it is working great. Well if it would stop raining and cool off a bit it would be even better but we do with what we have. I hope to have a workshop at some point but this is working fine for me now. See the adorable little boy there- just had to include him.

Thanks for taking my tour and now head on over to Karen's to see more.