WOYWW #x – Workspace then and Now.

It’s been a while since I participated in WOYWW, and I am not doing so now as this post has been ready for a while but somehow I don’t manage to post it on Wednesdays. Didn’t participated for the most common reason: major lack of time to be online. I knew I wouldn’t have the time to visit people, so I didn’t participate. I still don’t have much time, but I’d like to show the changes made to my workspace.

Before

An open cupboard, (actually an IKEA PAX cupboard, 58 cm deep, 100cm wide, 236 cm high) with a curtain (from the childrens room from the previous appartment) in front of it. Lots of storage space, but not it didn’t turn out very convenient as I had to keep moving stuff to get to the stuff in the back.

This is how much of my stuff is stuffed away.

This is how much of my stuff is stuffed away.

Turning around, you can see the table, and 3 chests of drawers. Or actually, you can only see one. Two are stacked, and the other one is next to them, below the shoebox decorated with white-rosed paper.

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Here you can see the two stacked ones.

Wednesday 00:40

Wednesday 00:40

Now

(Or rather, end of february 2015). I got another pax, the less deep one (35 cm, still 100cm wide and 238 cm tall) and added doors. Our current bedroom is differently shaped and a bit smaller then the previous one (moved april 2014), so we got sliding doors instead of these hinged doors. At first, I didn’t think they’d fit well in our living room. But now I think they do, it looks way better then the curtain, it looks less cluttered as the floor and cupboardoors match quite well. Also, as you can see, the tower of drawers is now next tot the cupboard.

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Which makes it possible for the tabl e to be extended more, and which makes it look more calm in that corner. (just hink away the mess on the table).Daqadoodles150228za001041005

 

Then onto some (I think clever) storage system. You know how supermarkets sometimes have special offers where you can save stuff? This sheet of metal is from Jan Linders, you could save grocery magnets so the kids could make a grocery list with images. The backside is covered with chalkboard paint.

With double sided tape I stuck it to the door and added some of the sizzix movers and shapers dies to it. This way I can SEE them, and therefore hopefully use them more. I added some tape at the height of the shelve, as I shouldn’t put dies there – they’d hit the shelve if I do. I did add a little helper thingy there, that small square isn’t a die but is meant to be able to lift paper out of sizzix bigz frame dies more easily.

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Note that purple thingy on the cupboard door? It´s a Grippy. It´s meant to keep your cellphone from sliding all over the dashboard of your car. It´s made of the same material as the old slimy hands which you could throw against a wall and then it would walk-climb down. We liked it so we bought a few to give a way as gifts to other nerdy friends, but we forgot about them. Later when I found them I thought I might be able to use them. Now I use them indeed… Put it on an acryllic block, put your unmounted stamp or mounted-but-not-sticking-stamp on it, and voila! Same effect as the tack’npeel, only now both sides are tacky instead just one, and you don’t attach it permanently to your acryllic block. Reason I used this is that I didn’t have a large enough size of tack ‘n peel on an acryllic block, and you attach the tnp permanet to a block. I don’t have multiple same sized big acryllic blocks so I didn’t want it permanently attached.

 

On the other side I stuck two A4 magnetic sheets. I didn’t have any more at the time, meanwhile I have added two more to have a bit more space for my dies. Many dies are on there, some that aren’t are nesting dies, I still prefer those in the metal tin (that used to hold pencils) which I lined with magnetic sheets as well. Now it is very easy to see my dies and pick one. I haven’t noticed I used them more often by the way. I love dies, I keep buying some occasionally, but I don’t use them a lot anymore, I often find it hard to combine them with stamping.

Daqadoodles150228za001440007The bottom shelve is still unsorted, I just stuffed all (or most) remaining paper there. On the next shelve are my binders with stamps, stencils, inventory list, spare mounting foam and a few stuff-tainers.

The third shelve: on the left part in the back are A4 papers/cardboard in my self made magazine files (made from cat litter boxes). I hardly use those papers. In front some tins with brushes and the plain tape. In the tin with the apple on it (stroopblikje) are brushes which my kids are allowed to use. Next to it, HEMA correspondentie kaartjes which I bought recently, I quite like them. In the brown box is A5 cardboard in several colours or designs. Don’t use those often either. Sometimes as backing card. In the blue plastic bin are the larger sizzix dies, many of them second hand. On top of it, you can see the pencil tin which hold some nesting dies, and on top of that a lightly decorated shoebox with unfinished cards inside. I have a new stack to add to it.

4th shelve, more little and big shoeboxes. Above it a shelve with A3 sixed paper and other bits that don’t fit on another shelve.

6th shelve, (6th if the bottom is a shelve too, that is): lots of small shoeboxes. My sponges are on there, distress markers, a very nice wooden alfphabet stamp set.

Shelve above that contains stuff. (Mostly used item from this shelve: the glues that are on the front. The other boxes are much less used).

Top shelve: acryllic paint, finger paint, childrens paint and finished cards. Stored out of reach of enthousiastic childrens hands. Ofcourse, the paint should be in the plastic bin with the yellow lid behind it, but you know how it goes… you grab some paint out, put the bin back, use the paint, clean up everything and quickly store the paint somewhere near the place it should be stored.

Nowadays I don’t buy those large containers of paint anymore – it’s good for large projects but I hardly have those. Now it’s just the ranger paint dabber/do crafts/alleene’s/hema small sized acryllic paint containers. Those fit into the drawers on the right.

The pictures were taken a few weeks ago, currently working on a different project.

Oh I made one more change to the workarea, this was before Easter to be able to hang up some cholates. Let me make a picture, brb!

….

…… sorry it took a bit longer, ofcourse cleaned the table empty (still was stuff on it) and removed the chair with all the clothes.

Bundis upcycled – I’ve always wanted a decorating thing ( those circles which hang above a table and you can decorate?) but not enought to actually buy one. We didn’t have space to hang it anyway. But I wanted to hang up chocolate easter eggs! So I made this, and hung the eggs beneath and had put young plants/seedlings on top.

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The eggs are ofcourse eaten, the seedlings gone outside, and the space reclamed for my glass jars.

Beneath it now are 3 hearts – the smalles one is from Freya, she got it from one of my sisters on her birthday. The other two was a gift for me, they were plain white and for me to decorate. I’ve decorated one with alcohol ink, then put a varnish on top and then stmaped the drops. Problem is I stamped with Versafine rather then Stazon, and oily ink on varnish is not a good idea, doesn’t really adhere/dry. Still have to do the edges and the other side. Oh, and the other heart as well ;)/

 

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The kids aren’t allowed on the table and know glass can break. They’ve left it alone so far, only time when they wanted to get something is the hearts or the mini chest. The hearts can be seen in the bottom of the closet – still brown/not painted. Here, my kids have painted them. For Denise Silva from https://sdenisesilva.wordpress.com/ I’ve put the tissue boxes on the table.  Oh and I altered/repaird my Ikea lampshade a bit more. See here for the first part – now I have repaired the two holes on the edges. Didn’t have that decoupage paper anymore so made my own using plain white tissuepaper and some distress colours.

 

IKEA Regolit – fixed!

What do you do when you IKEA regolit lamp has taken some beatings? (kids, cutlery, moving, etc…)

Unfortunately the paper-thing isn’t sold separately. Throw it out? Nah, that would be a waste. The rest of the lamp is ok, it’s just the lamphood (or whatever it’s called in english).

It had a few holes, but nothing too bad. In the past few months it seemed to have gotten worse. I haven’t got a picture of where you can see how the flaps hang down, but here is a picture of it after I took it off, ready to be fixed. You can imagine it’s not really a pretty sight when it’s hanging.

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So what did I do?

I put in my craftsheet, took out some tissue paper, decoupage pager and degoupage glue and had fun.

Daqadoodles150222zo114410001Here it’s lying flat, ready to be fixed.

Tear your tissue paper in pieces. Don’t cut! Try to get all edges torn – it blends better with the rest that way, else you’ll keep seing the cut edges very well. Put a royal amount of decoupate glue (I used Mod Podge) on the lampshade (aah I think that’s the word!) and put the paper on it, smooth it out with a dry brush. Be careful, it might rip. I didn’t put the second layer of mod podge on right away, as it sometimes causes the paper to tear up too easily. If needed, let it dry a bit first. I just went on to the next gap and fixed that, used several small bits and folded it around the ring a bit too. When layering it on another tissue paper, make sure there is glue in between. Be careful of only working on the craftsheet – I didn’t move it once it was in place, only got it out after everything was dry. I didn’t fix the hole on the right yet, as the craftsheet wasn’t under it and I didn’t want to risk sticking the top of the lampshade to the bottom.

It looked quite ok after this fix, but while I was at it, I thought: why not decorate it a bit more?
So I got out some decoupage paper. I didn’t want to decorate the entire bottom as it ofcourse influences the light coming from the lamp, and as it’s used as a light above our dinner table it’s nice if it is actually light. So no total coverage. No torn pieces of paper this time also.

I got my cuttlebug out, chose some dies and cut the decoupage paper. I decorated it rather sparsely, but I’m happy with the results.

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Yes, you still see some lines of the tissue paper, but it’s not as apparent as on the pictures. Also, you could add more die cuts to it. I might still do that, if I find the time.

For now, the hanging bits of paper are out of the way, and the lamp looks good again, with a little personal touch. I can’t wait for more holes to appear again, so I can decorate it a bit more ;).