MFT November Creative Chat

It's time for the MFT Creative Chat. The My Favorite Things Design Team Creative Chat is a monthly feature, where we are challenged to explore our creative spaces and share valuable organizational methods, tools, and shopping strategies with you. You'll be able to peek into our creative spaces, ask questions, and share your own ideas in the MFT forum.  This month, we were asked the following questions: 

Show us your desk.  How do you have things set up, and why?  

What are your "go-to" tools?  Tell us what you can't live without.

Visit Kim's Blog for a full list of designers that have taken up the challenge and get ready to delve into the minds of our creative team.

It's been a bit since I've participated in the Creative Chat - and I'm afraid I might have gone a little overboard with the pictures, so you'll just have to bear with me.  In my defense though. I have a U shaped work area so that's a lot of desk to show!

Here's my main work area.  I stamp in our unfinished basement.  We do have some remnant carpet down and I did paint the parging a couple of years ago - just so my little corner would look a little cleaner and brighter (I only painted the corner - not the whole basement).  Because the walls are cement, it's hard for me to attach anything to the walls - what's there has been drilled in with a masonry bit and although I would love nothing more than to cover the walls with storage solutions, it's just not going to happen. 

I happen to be left handed, so I store most of my go-to tools on the left side of my desk.  Not to say I haven't played around with placement though.  For a while I had my big 12x12 tonic trimmer on the right side, but I would lose my cut pieces down the side of my desk.  It's all trial and error for me!  So here you can see my full size trimmer, my smaller Fiskars trimmer, my new Scor Buddy (that I am loving), and my ATG gun.  These things pretty much live here.

Behind that are my copic markers.  I had originally wanted to get those nifty wood towers that looked similar to this, but by the time I was ready to bite the bullet and pay shipping to Canada, they stopped making them.  So I handed my hubby the directions off this blog and he made me these out of foam core board.  Love them!  On top I have my refills stored in the pink basket and my Prismacolor pencils/stumps/gamsol in the can.

Immediately to the right of my markers I have an Ott Light and a couple baskets (from the dollar store) that hold my acrylic blocks and stamp pads, as well as some of my most used basic sets (i.e. alphas, tag sets).  

I protect my work surface with a self-healing mat but I also use this purple foam pad to stamp on and colour on as well.  I keep another little green bucket on my desk for small scraps of paper - saves me from searching for the garbage.  

At the back of my desk, I have a couple of these tiered shelves (I think they're actually for spices) and a couple clear baskets to sit on top of the tiers.  Here you can see I have my piercing mat and inks and sponge daubers in one.  And in the second I have a whole schwack of embellishments.  These are things that I use frequently, or things that are new and that I want to use.  At the moment there's lots of brads, rhinestones, pearls, and some linen thread among other things.

Above my desk I have a couple of Bygel Rails from Ikea mounted on the wall.  I have some storage cups and a basket right now hanging from the rails.  The one on the left (remember I'm left handed?) holds my most used stuff.  Notably my ruler, micro tip scissors, piercing tool, and sanding block. 

Here's another basket with glue dots, glitter, and some other stuff.  I love the way that the punches can sit on top of the rail.  These particular ones are corner rounders and ticket corner punches.

The right side of my desk with my laptop

Ooh this one looks messy.  It's filled with more adhesives (red line tape, scor tape, tape runners, and liquid glues) as well as some replacement trimmer blades.  There's also some painters tape that I use to secure dies to paper and some Eclipse masking tape.  The green basket holds stamps that I want to use - usually ones that I haven't had time to ink up yet or new purchases.  And you can see just to the right of my desk there's a pile of fabric and denim waiting to be used on cards.

More baskets!

Underneath my desk I store my cardstock.  This is my overflow box.  I'm trying to decide how to deal with it, but for now this is working o.k.

Here's my main collection of cardstock.  It's full.  Too full - thus the overflow.  Hmmm..

To the immediate right of my desk is a high storage cabinet with counter.  The very top holds my Cuttlebug and embossing folders.  It was too messy to show you!  Ha!  These shelves are less than an arms length from my desk and I grab these baskets of dies constantly while constructing cards.

The bottom shelf holds the bulk of my patterned paper pads. 

This sewing desk completes the U shape of my work area.  It's immediately behind my main work desk, which means I only need to swivel my chair 180 degrees and scootch it in a little to reach my sewing machine.  This is my second Janome Sew Mini.  I bought a new one this summer after mine finally gave out.  But it worked hard for almost 4 years so I have no complaints!

The drawers to the left of the sewing machine store my ribbons.  They're separated by colour, but are just shoved in the drawers.  

And on top of the drawers is a button organizer (that one of my good friends made me) as well as my twine.

Phew!  I'm exhausted!  If you've stuck around this long - thanks!  I hope that you found it interesting and maybe even helpful.  I can't wait to visit the rest of the team to see where they work!  I'll see you back here tomorrow for the first day of MFT Teasers!!