We blog, we bake.
We craft, we create.

Friday 28 June 2013

This post is not soft, definitely not strong, but my goodness it's awfully long

Well hello there from the bears. We've seen a lot of Youtube and blog studio tours, wow, some people have a LOT of stash, we are impressed. Compared to many we don't have a veritable amount of stash, but we have enough for our needs ( although of course we also have a wishlist that far exceeds life expectancy!)
We thought we would do our very own bears' 'studio' (bedroom) tour. Now, you've all seen the desk plenty of times, and in plenty of different places around the bungalow too, but we think we've finally found the perfect place for it in the bears bedroom, hidden in a corner behind the door.




But let's delve a little further in, and see where everything lives now that we 'think' the desk is in its permanent position... If you look closely to the right hand side of the desk, that's it, lean in a bit more, nooo, more than that. Ah, that's better. Now you can see our super cheapo pen storage - £2.99 for two slot together units, instead of around £30 for the 'official' version. Us bears are tight pawed you know!!! The top shelf has the Sharpie pens, white pens and any other journalling type pens, and all other shelves house the Spectrum Noir pens, all sorted by Wilbear into colour order. To the left of the plastic unit is our nifty recycling bin pen pot, which we use for paint brushes, a pokey tool, pencils, anything pen or brush like can find its way into this little pot! Next to that is a plastic index box, still waiting to be decorated ( one day- it took us years to decorate the MDF unit!) On top of this sits Namjo Fairy boy, yes, that really is his name. He was a gift from a dear friend of ours and he watches over all of our crafting.




But what's that odd clip on top of the pen unit? It's our most needed tool, a bendable lamp, the crafting corner is furthest away from the window and without this lamp crafting would be almost impossible.




Above the desk is a shelf, installed for us by Wilbear. We have a magazine rack with the latest Craft Stamper magazines in, a couple of Somerset Studio magazines bought second paw, and a Scrap 365 magazine. Most of these are full of post-it notes of projects we want to try. Also on this shelf are presents received from friends, and our canvas we made for the UKS Spring bloghop.




Just under the shelf is the MDF storage unit we recently decorated, now, what does this house? Let's see if we can reel it all off by memory.... Top drawers, l- r... L- Tools such as pliers, eyelet setters, drawing pins... Middle-stuffed full of foam pads for applying distress inks, right- Distress stains and alcohol inks (so far so good eh?)
Middle drawers L- dry glues, glue dots, 3d foam pads, R- washi tape
Bottom drawer - small background stamps and homemade foam stamps.
Phew, we remembered it all!




Moving back down to the desk, the Cricut now lives on the left. Permanently plugged in, as we found that it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.




Still with us? Shall we take a look under the desk? Here we have 3 shelving units, one of which was an old CD rack.




We utilised this for our clear stamps, which we took from the supplied acetate and housed in old CD cases. Also we have our favourite wooden stamps here, and a case of Darkroom Door stamps.




The middle shelving unit? Top shelf has our Cricut cartridges and some colouring pencils that haven't found a permanent home yet. The next shelf has our sizzix dies, and the bottom shelf has books ready to use on journal pages, plus our Art Doodle Love journal and a book full of verses for cards.




Moving over to the right hand shelving unit; this is our grab space. We have our current journal. Made by a dear friend of ours,the French/ English dictionary we're using for The Craft Barn challenge... Also our in use glues, Mod Podgy, Gesso, Golden Matte Medium, a tin which has spare tags and plain pages ready to decorate. The shelf under that has books full of pictures and text to be used in some way, a stash of A4 card, stencils, the Gelli plate...




Also on this shelf we have magazine cutouts and flyers or junk mail in sorted plastic wallets.




So, that's the actual desk area. Shall we move to the right a bit? What about those two drawers underneath the sizzix machine (also out due to the out of sight out of mind theory).




As you can see, these are the drawers nearest to our desk.




So the best use for them is for art stash! The top drawer is full of artist paint. Texture paste, grunge paste, cheap large acrylic paints for backgrounds, palettes, plastic cups for water, crackle glaze (as yet unused). Also lots of foam brushes, a few paint brushes, old credit cards for scraping texture pastes, material scissors (why are they in here????)




The drawer under this has brayers, the glue gun, usually the heat gun. But that's out cooling somewhere right now) Our pastels are in here, some old style plastic stencils, a Xyron sticker machine, cheaper acrylic paint for the Gelli plate, sponges and other painty tools.



Above these two drawers, way up, is a cupboard full of tools and other stash. Bearby wipes live in here, along with kitchen roll, both essential items. Also the craft mat and the Sizzix dies that won't fit on the shelf under the bed. Oh, and a random double plug!!



Are you bored of that side of the room? Shall we swivel round? Oh, you can see our furry reflections in the mirror now. This is the side opposite the desk and bed. The window is out of sight to the left of the TV, which we watch Create some Furry Crafts on.



Under the TV we have two units, each with 2 shelves. Shall we look a little closer?




Top shelf - these are all our punches, you can see our two most treasured Martha Stewart punches, we're slowly rebuilding our punches, as all but one were given away when the human under the bd (hereafter known as THUTB) first became unwell. On the right you can see our rather impressive collection of mists and sprays, every Dylusions mist except the black and chocolate, and many Glimmer mists too. We love our misty stash.




The next shelf holds our art towels, full of colourful grunginess. The thin box has our finished tags and other small projects, the Really Useful Box? How to describe what's in there? Hmm, embellishments? It has paper doilies, embellishments that have been included in kits, some stickers, journal spots, some jigsaw pieces, bits and pieces really, hard to describe but one of those boxes where only you would know where to go to find what you need.




The bottom cupboard? Well that has our replacement glues, our bottles of flowers and an empty tin, the stamps are borrowed from our cub and are sitting in here awaiting return to her.




Underneath that are an oddment of books, uni assignments (we hope to return to studying this year) a French language course that has been waiting to be started since the year dot, a folder full of details of our stamps, previously made mini books and journals waiting to be used. Oh, and our lovely birthday book, made by yet another talented friend.




Goodness, you're bored of that side of the room now?? Okay, we'll swing round once more. See all that lovely storage above our bed?




In one cupboard we have frames waiting to be filled with arty efforts, a folder full of made and received ATCS....




And in the cupboard to the left, the one nearer the desk, we have our two current ring bound scrapbooks. Two empty pizza boxes ready to spray into, a box of pawmade cards, an easel and a box of brads and buttons, oh, and some gel pens. What an odd place we put them in!




The box file you can see holds mostly patterned papers and A5 card.




Now what tour would be complete without the stash under the bed? A box choc full of arty oddments. Chicken wire, gutter guard, foam,bubble wrap....




Another box full of all our Dylusions and Paperartsy stamps, and our entire collection of inks.




Two 12 x12 boxes, one with patterned paper and kits, the other 12 x12 card.




On t'other side of t'bed we have the card making box, sadly depleted at the moment




On top of that sits the lap tray, for pawly days where we try to craft in bed




And the last box under the bed has an eclectic mix - Christmas presents, future blog candy and a few other bits that were homeless!




OMG, THUTB is attempting an escape, shove the boxes back!!!!!




Just to prove there really is a window in our room




You're probably wondering, with all that craft stash taking over the storage units, where do the bears keep their clothes? Why, in the drawer of course!




I hope you managed to stay with us and enjoyed our rather lengthy tour.
With love from the bears

11 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the very detailed tour and fab piccies. I love that your bedroom has been taken over almost completely by crafting - also glad that the human didn't manage to escape! I think you need a little bear-sized wardrobe to hang your clothes in - it must be difficult to cope with human-size furniture?! Ali x

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    Replies
    1. You're right, we should throw out all the human sized storage and build our own.

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  2. A long Post - which I diligently read and an equally long reply.....
    Hahahahaha !!! Thank you so much for a jolly good laugh and a fantastic tour of your crafting room. So many gorgeous goodies and I am totally envious of the neatness of it all. I have sooooo much stuff poked everywhere - as I hoard empty boxes etc, on the basis of "you never know when I might need it" !! LoL
    I am green with envy at your vast collection of SN Pens !!!!
    Just being nosey (and possibly an ulterior motive going on here) what Cricut Cartridges do you possess ?????? I have a real good friend who has tons and for a small fee, she cuts things for me :-D

    So glad THUTB didn't quite escape... what a shocker. That was a close shave !!!!!

    Thanks for visiting me today and in answer to your question on my Freebie Friday 'cuties'.......
    Oh Yeah !!!!.... I'm sure we could rip some legs of and 'scarirify' them a bit. !!! See - we are clawing you over to the Dark Side now, even as we speak bwaaahahahaha !!

    Mega Hugz
    IKE xxx

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    Replies
    1. Hmm, now let's see we can remember while they're out of site and we're lounging on the sofa... Heritage, Life's a Beach, George, Stamped and Type Candy. Npt many as yet but we plan a zooballoo pawchase at some stage, when we stop spending on other craft stuff that is. Any good to you?

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  3. You Bears seem to be very organised and what crafting stash you do have you have stored it in places that are easy for you to get to. I think that you probably don't need much more as you do seem to have covered all areas, well done
    Ria

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  4. All very organised, bears... and how convenient having the bed so close in case you need a quick snooze. Your craft/clothes storage ratio looks about the same as mine. I don't think I've bought a single item of clothing since starting this crafting malarkey. Thank you so much for the tour.
    Alison xx

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    Replies
    1. Well who needs clothes eh? They only get stained and dirtied by our artistic efforts! May as well save the money for stash and more stash!

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  5. Wonderful tour and all so neat and tidy--wish you bears would pop to my craft room and do some magic to make everything look like yours. I haven't got much 'real' crafting stuff I just have lots of things I save because they may come in handy and things that are waiting to be put up on a 'show case wall'--these have been piling up for many a moon and still no nearer to getting onto the wall.

    You are inspiring!

    Love Chrissie xx

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  6. Hey bears, thank you for the tour although I have seen your crafty room IRL it amazes me just how much crafty stuff you actually have! So glad THUB didn't escape that would have been terrible for you! Love from me xx

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  7. You have so much space! I'm so jealous. Every time I want to do some crafting I have to collect what I think I'll need and carry it down to the dining table. I would love to have a dedicated craft space, but there just isn't room.

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  8. What a great post bears! As tidy as ever I see! I have serious stash envy right now!!! You have everything I'd choose for myself!

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