Big News Plus My Studio Remodel

I have been missing from my blog for a while now. I apologize but some wonderful, big things are happening in my career and life.

Besides continuing as the Senior Graphic Designer and Brand Packaging Specialist at Sizzix / Ellison, I have been promoted to Senior Product Designer as well. What this means is that I will now design my own line of dies and stamps. I am so excited! I have crafted my entire life so this makes me feel so complete.

But what this also means is that I am busier than ever at work. I am still creating all of Tim Holtz's packaging plus his catalog for the upcoming Summer trade show. I am so thankful that the company and Tim wanted me to continue working on his lines.

Designing my own product also means that I want to stay very close to the crafting industry trends and eventually share my vision of how my designs can be used. This gave me the incentive to reorganize my tiny studio at home. To begin, I have been spending a lot of time pouring over images of craft studios.

Here is a sneak peek of the first stage of my studio remodel:

On one hand I love the look of using vintage, repurposed storage for all of my supplies. I would love a studio like Cathe Holden of Just Something I Made. The studio images make me want to gather all of my vintage goodies and decorate. But her studio is 1,000 square feet and my space is a tiny 150 square feet. I have a lot of stuff but I think that much visual candy would be overwhelming in my small space. Plus I have a big, black dog that attracts dust and I didn't want to worry about dusting all of the time.

And then there is Jennifer McGuire's beautiful, efficient, professionally-planned studio. I wanted that style as well. Two completely opposite but highly-organized styles of creative spaces that made me swoon with envy.

So, in my typical Gemini manner, I am doing a mash-up of the two styles. I bought storage drawers from Go-Organize.com to keep things relatively dust-free and organized. But to keep everything from becoming too uniform, I am going to add my vintage storage solutions as the next step. I'm not there yet so you'll have to wait for the big reveal later.

In the image above you can see the clean hanging paper drawers stacked on one side of my studio.
I already had the Tilt Bins on the walls above my desk. The new white drawers are already filled with my papers. That's it! I am not going to buy any more paper until I use up some in the drawers. I'm still trying to live with less so I'm purging as I organize.

This was a fun but exhausting weekend. I can't wait to get back to work!