As promised, we are going behind the scenes of Jill Schwartz's world. As you all know, Jill is the designer of Making Memories' Vintage Groove Jewelry Collection in addition to her own high-end company, Elements/Jill Schwartz. Jill was featured in Where Women Create magazine which is where we have received most of the photos shown below. Jill describes her studio and work space:
I love my studio in Great Barrington, MA. It is so me!!! Plus, it’s a space I just love to be in!!!!
I have had 4 other studios over the past 29 years since I have been in business which were all located in NYC. So when I moved to MA in 1999 I had a pretty good idea about what works and the kind of flow my space needed to take on. Given my degree in interior design and the help of my long time production manager Carolyn, we were able to come up with a floor plan that truly works. The whole studio is a little more than 6000 sq feet. It houses a production studio, my personal studio and office, a general office area, a shipping area, a bookkeeper’s office, a production manager's office, a lunch area and a lot of storage.
Click to see more of Jill's gorgeous workspace:
Organizing Ribbon
I have a ridiculous amount of ribbon and have organized it a hundred different ways. This has been my most successful attempt. I utilize an Ikea kitchen island as a desk and it has a shelf underneath the drawers. I need my ribbon to be handy, I need to find it quickly without hours of searching, I need to keep it clean, and I don't want to see it. I bought these lined baskets on sale from Michaels, then stored ribbon in sandwich sized plastic bags, and stood them up inside each basket, arranged by color.
For the ribbons themselves, I either wind small amounts in finger eights and utilize the ties that come with my boxes of garbage bags (string could work just as well), leave it on the roll, or cut it from trim cards. The key for me is that the ribbon is in smaller bags, meaning I can easily grab a bag and see what's in there without having to rummage around in it. It saves me a lot of time. Granted, most people don't have this amount of ribbon to contend with, but....
Suzoone
Organizing Embellishments
I have an endless supply of small embellishments that need to be organized and easily accessible. I purchase these plastic boxes that come with plastic jars (usually in the beading section of craft stores). I can arrange small amounts of embellishments by type and then stack the boxes on a shelf. I still see what I have, but it feels a lot less cluttered.
I take the candy store approach to organizing a lot of my larger odds and ends. I mix various sized jars and again, display items by type. In my case, there's baker's twine in one, buttons in another, butterflies, shells, pine cones, gift toppers, pressed cotton balls, corks, vintage millinery items, mini clothespins, etc.
How do you store your embellishments?
Suzoone
Organizing
Over the next two days, Suzoone is going to share with you her secrets for staying organized. Her number one tip is, make your supplies accessible! If your supplies are not accessible, you are more likely to forget about them, less likely to use them, and definitely likely to feel frustrated.
I use a lot of kitchen accessories in my office. I use magnetic knife strips that I get from Ikea (I think they're about $5 or $6 each) to organize my hole punches, scissors, awls, wire cutter, etc.
I use a silverware tray to organize my Making Memories' Shimmer. I insert it in the drawer horizontally and prop up all the bottles. That makes it very easy to see what I have available and it's a very portable means of organizing. This is also a good way to store bottles of paint (if you have a manageable amount) - like Making Memories' Scrapbook Colors.
Check back tomorrow to see how I store my embellishments.
Wilna's Card Organization
This past Christmas we got so many beautiful Christmas Cards. I am so sentimental and I was looking for a way to store them in a creative way. This is not only applicable to Christmas Cards, but it can include Birthdays and Get well cards or any special occasions when you get a lot of cards like an Anniversary!
My idea is just so simple. Take a ordinary box like the one's you can get at Walmart (in packages of 3) for wrapping gifts in. Cover it with your favorite papers. I used Making Memories' Fa-la-la Paper for the Christmas Card box and some pretty Pink paper (from Making Memories' Animal Crackers) for the Birthday Card box.
After you have covered and embellished it, make sure you add a sticker to the side of the box so that when you display it in your book shelve, you can easily find the box and browse though it's contents. I love keeping cards. Sometimes when I make a card I look though old cards for some journaling ideas. Plus when you are as sentimental as I am, this is an ideal solution to all your cards.
Happy Organizing in 2009!
Wilna
Wilna's Scrap Space
Prepare to be jealous. Wilna’s scrap space has received a makeover that will have you hitting up your local furniture/home improvement store to do the same.
If you thought it looked good before take a look at this before and after…
And more photos of what it looks like now:
Wilna said, "For years I have wanted a floor in my scrapbook room that's easy to clean (especially if I spill paint). This fall we did some home renovations and I got a maple hardwood floor, so I want to share a few pictures of my new scrapbook room. Most of the furniture is from Ikea. I think my favorite thing in the whole room is the pink crystal chandelier that we got for $60 at a local retailer. It's just that final stamp that says, “girly-girl.” You can see more pictures of the room here.
Thanks for looking!
Laura's Scrap Space
I am very fortunate to have my own scrap space in our house. About two years ago, I moved up to the loft area in our upstairs. It is a fairly large open space and from there I can see all the bedrooms below. I share the loft area with my two girls. They have their computer desk, a TV and a big comfy chair, the foosball table, and extra floor space to play and I have all my scrapbook stuff. So even when I'm creating in my space, I am still hanging out and chatting with my girls at the same time. I love it.
My large black shelves are from IKEA, and I just love them. I had a really long wall on one side of the space, so I put two of these shelves side by side. I love that I can cram them full, and they don't look too busy. Or I can spread things out and make it a little bit more decorative. I love storing my supplies in baskets. I have a mix of wicker baskets, silver metal mesh baskets, and black metal mesh baskets. I organize in several ways. Some things are by product type. Like chipboard letters, letter stickers, rub-ons, etc. But I also have some things that I organize by manufacturer. I pretty much know where everything is. However I do love just dig around, going through baskets and bins till I find what I'm looking for. And more often than not, I will find things that I wasn't looking for that work perfectly too.
The rest of my furniture was all built by my mom. I'm lucky to have a very handy mom, and she can make me whatever I want to fit the size I want. I just come up with the dimensions that I have in mind and the style, and then she does everything from there. This island is one of my favorites. It is huge, 4 by 8 feet. The front side of it is actually for my girls and their scrap stuff, which would explain the messy side! When I don't have anything big going on, I keep the top pretty clean. I have a large black cutting mat, my trimmer, my embellishment box which holds all my brads, and two desktop carousels (one for me and one for my girls). When I am working on projects, the entire island will usually be covered in product.
On the long side of my island, I store all my paper and cardstock. I use horizontal paper trays for all my cardstock. The majority of it is organized by color, but I also keep some organized by collection or textures. I store my pattern paper in vertical paper holders, organized by manufacturer. I also have lots of 12" x 12" plastic boxes that hold different projects that I'm working on or need to work on. I have a few three-drawer plastic containers that hold my paper scraps, organized with a few colors in each drawer. The small white plastic bins directly under the desktop hold my tools, random adhesives, and stamping supplies. They are really easy to pull out and grab what I need, and then push the basket back in.
Another favorite of mine is my "embellishment shelf", also built by my mom. This shelf is only six inches deep, but is four feet wide and about six feet tall. It has nothing but jars, filled with every sort of embellishment you can think of. I find that if I can see things, I'll use them more. So when I am at the point on my projects where I'm ready to embellish, I simply walk over to my shelf and start scanning the jars for ideas. These jars are mainly organized by manufacturer. Although each manufacturer may be broken down into several jars. The bottom two shelves are all my random ribbons and buttons that I've collected from the craft store. But I also keep separate jars with ribbons and buttons from specific manufacturers.
In the corner of the space, I have a simple computer desk and my printers. I also have this large red cabinet that my mom built me. It has two sides to it, with four doors on the front. I used to store all my finished albums in there, but have recently moved those out. Now I use it to store supplies that I don't use that often. Spray paints, extra adhesives, foam stamps, extra albums and refills, my sewing machine and larger tools. On top of this cabinet, I have some really large jars that are filled with all my Making Memories ribbons. Like I mentioned before, I love storing things in jars. And the ribbon is one of my favorites. I will literally dump all the ribbon out onto my desk and look for the perfect one to match, and then in one big swoop it goes back in the jar. I also keep a few smaller jars of fun embellishments up there too, whatever I'm loving at the moment.
That's it for now.
I am so lucky to have a craft room such as this all to myself.
We have 4 bedrooms upstairs and I took over one that we used to use as a playroom. The girls never played in it and all it did was store toys. I was out growing the little office we have downstairs pretty fast. One day it dawned on me that I should take on the extra bedroom for my “toys.”
My husband offered to have a craft table made for me, so of course I took him up on his offer. Not long after that I had a desk with shelves made that was supposed to go into the closet. The measurements were off so it doesn’t’ actually fit in there, but still works in my space perfectly.
I love the six windows and high ceilings that flood the room with natural light, especially on sunny days.
There really isn't anything that I would change. It makes me feel good to be able to scrap in such a great space. I try real REALhard to keep it clean and organized. My husband and the girls are often in here with me, they usually take over the computer while I am scrapping. It nice to have them around so I am not alone! I am lucky...and I am very grateful!
I love my scrapbook space. This little sanctuary is where I spend most of my time. It's my favorite room in my home. Often when my friends visit, we drink coffee in here. And this is where my creativity flourishes and my he{ART} gets it's wings. My favorite thing in this room is my iMac computer. I have a 20" screen right infront of my work space that provides my entertainment when I work! YES! like watching my favorite movies/ music dvd's or just listening to my favorite music on iTunes. Once you go Mac, you'll never go back!
Happy creating!
Wilna
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