Phase 3 - A Place for Everything & Everything in it's Place

After sorting everything into it's respective category I went about finding the perfect size container for each grouping of items. Of course many items fit nicely into the drawers and cabinets in my extra large hutch.


The shelves were great for my magazines,...

scraps of fabric...

and a variety of vintage trims.

I found some cute little wood baskets for storing bits of sewing trim and such at Ross which I hope to stencil descriptions on in the decor portion of my studio makeover.

Some more generic baskets were the perfect size to tuck under the lower portion of my cabinet and held much larger quantities of things.

And of course my vintage expandable sewing box is now brimming with goodies that I found around the room...might be time to start using some of those!

This little cabinet was a $20 find at an estate sale...I love all it's shallow drawers with the tag holders on the front. It had been floating around my home in hopes of finding the perfect place to land and I believe this is it. It is ideal for paper and as you can see my printer/scanner tucks in right on top and underneath my fabric shelves.


Now speaking of fabric...yikes I have a lot!!! A local fabric shop was kind enough to give me some empty bolts that they were planning to discard. It never hurts to ask and my large amounts of yardage are now tucked safely in a basket neatly rolled on these cardboard bolts.

Then I found this vintage gold display shelving that was just right for all my smaller amounts of yardage.

Lastly, I put a vintage fruit basket to use for all my hankies, doilies and scraps of fabric.

So nice to have this tedious part of the process over!!! It feels so good to have a place for everything. Now I can't wait to get started on my favorite part of the process Phase 4 - Making Things Pretty. And as I teaser I leave you with a sneak peek into one of my first projects that is the jumping off point for my color scheme.

Phase 2 - The Purge

Well it has taken me two long evenings to dig my way through the mess in my soon to be studio/office. After removing most everything from the room I was glad to see it was much bigger then I remembered and believe it or not I had a small desk, chair and rug underneath it all.

I was suprised at a lot of the little things I found along the way and said to myself many times "so that's where this has been hiding", "hmmm...what does this belong to?","I kept this why?" Needless to say I had a number of things to throw out, many neat items to add to my annual spring garage sale and a lot of organizing to begin. I am resisiting the urge to start decorating so instead I now begin what is to me the most difficult part: Phase 3 - A Place for Everything and Everything in it's Place.

Phase 1 - Admit Weakness

It is now 24 days in to the new year and it's about time I started putting some of my 2009 goals into action. Near the top of my list was tackling my overwhelmingly cluttered spare room. When I first stepped out to try running my own business I had high aspirations of turning my second bedroom into an insprational space full of the things I loved, projects I was working on and a very organized space to get things done. Ha ha ha! How quickly necessity of everyday life turned this dream into the dumping grounds for everything I wanted to hide when friends or family were stopping by. They say that admitting weakness is half the battle so in an attempt to start off on the right foot here is my confession:

So it wasn't quite a verbal confession but if a picture is truly worth a thousand words...need I say more? Seriously it's such a disaster!!! Tons of amazingly cool vintage things, fabrics, projects, etc are floating around in this mess but who would know?! And who knew someone who could be so super organized at her former places of employment could let her own office look this way...goes to show how much discipline it takes to work for yourself!

Be sure to check back later for Phase 2 - "The Purge."

Doing a New Thing

Well after a few months of testing the waters of what self employment might look like I've discovered a number of things I do not want to do and a number of things I enjoy. While I do have fun finding cool vintage things at garage sales, thrift stores and the like I really want to focus more of my efforts into bringing some of my own ideas into reality. Fear has held me back quite a bit in making this happen but I've decided that the new year is going to be about taking risks and trusting God to take care of the little things. This blog is where I will share some of my ideas, new things I am working on and vintage items I have discovered as well as the experiences in this adventure they call self employment. Taking the leap ~ kt

Ecclesiastes 11:4-6