WOYWW?

Hello!  If you're joining me having followed a link from Julia's blog, welcome and it's nice to see you.  Let me know you've been here and I'll definately come and pay you a recipricol visit!  If you don't know what I'm on about, go visit Julia and see what all the fuss is about. 


I haven't joined in with this for a couple of weeks, and so this week I thought I'd show some photographs of my hideously messy craft room.  I feel so silly saying that - I'm very very lucky indeed to have a space to dedicate to all my crafty mess, but it probably won't be the case forever and so I'm trying not to expand to fill the space too much!  I'd like to point out that "the camera never lies" is most definately not true - it does lie!  It lies to me about the size of my backside in photographs, and it also seems to lie about the size of this room, which looks huge!.  It is definately not this big, but if you'd like to imagine that I live in a huge rambling home with acres of space... you carry on!

Oh dear.  Let's start with the floor, shall we?  Bubble wrap from wrapping up parcels; those annoying plastic bags that come off of Thickers and which never seem to go back on properly; bits of old paper; offcuts of interfacing; I even spy a Distress Ink pad there.  Around the walls, you can see I have attractively piled up a load of boxes, and precariously balanced on top my sewing box and a bit of quilt batting.  Nice - design led.

On the wall is my butterfly picture (which someone commented on the other day and was super impressed when I said that I made it - happy!), and a picture of old Penguin books, which is actually wrapping paper.  

Behind the door - another terrifying area, where once more I have gone for the 'pile it all up' method of storage.  My wheeled tote bag leans in the corner (I say lean, because it's lost one of the legs that props it up.  This annoys me every single time I use it), a bag of punches, a fold up chair, a bag I made as a present but have not yet given, and, usefully, a pair of bunny ears.  Don't ask me why - I don't know.

Ah.  The shelves of dooooom.  Having lots of shelves in a unit like this is lovely.  But I am the sort of person (as you may have already guessed) who, given space, will fill it up and pile it up with all manner of junk, until there is no space left.  I love the idea of minimilism, but I just can't do it.  I particularly like the bottom left shelf, where as you can see, I am stashing old boxes and bits of cardboard.  Let's focus on something nice instead, shall we?  On the right you see Betty, the beautiful blue typewriter.  Top left is where I keep my little easel and try to keep a recent layout propped up there. 

The desk itself is another shameful area.  At the far end is a big box of stamps, and playing with stamps is what I've been doing here (and hopefully I'll be posting the results soon - I'm super pleased with how it came out).  The sewing machine is in use too, so that just gets shoved out of the way whilst I stamp. 

No area has survived the carnage.  This little bowl used to be super pretty and held just a few spools of embroidery thread in pretty colours.  Now it has become a dumping ground for tape measures and bits of old paper.

But.  I always think that a messy work area shows that at least you have been doing something.  I see so many photos on blogs of beautiful spaces, gorgeously decorated and fabulously organised.   They're beautiful, but I can't imagine being able to make anything in them.  Like it or not, I'm the kind of person who likes to drag everything out when making, and very often I don't have a clear idea in my head of exactly what I will and won't be using.  So I make mess.  I can't help it!

I've been making lots of clutch bags which I'm pleased to say have sold better than I expected.  They look so pretty when they're all lined up. 

I'm pleased with my stamped efforts and have some ideas forming in my head for another project, which hopefully I'll be able to show you soon.


I'm feeling rather pleased with my blog makeover still - do you like it?

So all in all - I'm feeling back in the groove again!