PLANNING YOUR CREATIVE SPACES

What do you plan for with your creative spaces? 

I am lucky enough to have 2 creative spaces.  My glass space I talked about in my last blog, and a space for all the other fun artistic endeavors I like to do (beading, mixed media and scrapbooking).  I LOVE doing my creative projects and also want to spend time with my darling husband.  Our solution was to combine our office space (where Richard likes to spend his extra time) and my art space in what was the master bedroom.  Now we can chat and work on our projects ‘together’.  It is much more fun that way. :-)  When you consider how much time we spend working, after work meetings and sleeping, that does not leave us much time to spend together.  So combining our spaces together was our perfect solution to spending more time together.

People are pretty surprised when we tell them that we took a nice, large master bedroom and made it a working space for both of us.  Of course, I have to say the guys like the idea, since Richard added a very large flat screen TV to the room, but the ladies are not so sure.  One of our goals of the move was to downsize our living space, but NOT the activities we enjoy.  Homes in ABQ generally don’t have basements (where we used to do these activities) so the downsizing process meant finding just the right home layout that did not require significant remodeling, thus re-purposing spaces.

Here are a few pics of our ‘working space’.  Richard is the maple desk on the left and mine on the right, near my racks of creative supplies, and a red work table between us.  Now to keep him from spreading out too far on the red table… 

Sure looks cluttered in this picture. For me it is quite organized, down to the rolling cart of beads in Snapware containers next to the chair.

This is probably the cleanest my work table will be, since I cleaned it up for the picture.  :-)

LOVE these racks.  They are so functional with the adjustable shelving and the ability to hang items from them.  Awesome!

Just starting to fill the horizontal spaces again as I work on the latest pendant.

It was also important in our working space to make sure there was room for our little furry buddies.  After all, they also enjoy being with us.  Duncan and Zoe have their little comfy spot under the table, so when they prefer not to sprawl out on the floor they can lounge on their pillows.  The pillows also conveniently cover the cords that Richard would prefer not to be pulled out accidentally by these darlings.  ;-)

Duncan napping under the table.  Content to be with 'his people'.

Our space works well for us and our little buddies.  What do you like best about your creative space and would you want to share it with your significant other or prefer a more focused space? 

THE BIG ADVENTURE!

My little art adventure just got bigger!

We made a really big life decision about a year ago.  My projects were coming to an end and it was the perfect time to make the move west (a long time dream of ours).  Of course it is never that simple.  We had a house to sell and a small IT business with 70+ clients to transition so they did not lose the support they came to rely on.  Between the all-consuming transition activities and not alerting the clients to the changes before the new owner of our company had a chance for introductions, I have been a bit absent from our fun little blog.  The good news, I am back to chat and continue to share my little art adventure with you as promised.

It has taken us awhile to get settled, but we are now officially living in Albuquerque, NM.  The blue skies and sunshine are amazing.   Albuquerque has 4 seasons, with a very short/mild winter, and an art community to engage with.  How can one resist?  Bonus: a wonderful mix of cultures makes for a fun new world for us to learn and enjoy.

Our move had a couple expectations:

• find fun new jobs (one check, one more to go)
• downsize our home (check)
• space for an office and art with a separate glass space (check)
• begin engaging in our new world (beginning)

We found a smaller home with a 3-stall garage, leaving me the third stall for my new glass studio (just needed to add the wall to keep the little glass shards from shooting to the car stalls).  Lucky for me there is a nice little patio behind the garage.  I had a door added and a wet bench outside (no water in garage).  The beauty of being in Albuquerque is there are very few days where you would not want to work outside.  How fun is that!  :-)

3rd stall... soon to be cleared out!

Under the pile of foam pads is a kiln just itching to be used!

Door to the 'magical room'... reminder... need to add a fun sign.

For all the wet work (saw, cleaning glass, drilling, etc.)

As you can see the glass space has been used as a storage space for boxes so we can keep the house clear of clutter and the garage open to parking cars as we moved in.  The good news is that the broken down boxes and packing materials will be moved out this weekend and I can start setting up the shelving and getting my glass studio in working order.  I can’t wait!

This gardenia plant smells so wonderfully sweet and is a perfect welcome at our front door. Thank you Phyllis for the wonderful house warming gift.

More news and pictures as it all takes shape.  A new adventure is beginning and I can’t wait to share it with all of you!

 

ARTISCAPE ADVENTURE!

This will be my first trip to Artiscape held in Columbus, OH this weekend.  I am very excited for my classes Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and being around artists and a wide range of art all weekend!  What more could one ask for?  Classes, convention, and ending with an art fair!!!  A perfect weekend.

The weekend festivities include an auction where artists donate pieces for a silent auction for First Book literacy initiatives.  The piece needs to be inspired by the event’s Irish theme.  My submission will not be the ‘typical’ Irish fare, but it is green and does have that spunky fun feel to it.

So far the weather looks like it will be cooperating for our trip.  I will soon have my art supplies packed with my artist trading cards and auction item tucked in the bag.  I pick up Nancy Thursday morning and off we head on our weekend adventure.  Can’t wait.

PARTICIPATE IN ARTIST SWAPS... WHAT FUN!

Oh my gosh!  What a great project. If you ever get a chance to participate in an artist swap, I highly recommend it.  It is fun, enlightening, and a wonderful way to see what you can aspire to. ArtPapersOnline.com organized a postcard swap with 60 artists all over the world.  We are all hand making 9 postcards to send to artists and receiving 9 different handmade cards in return.  As we complete our cards they are posted on Pinterest so we can see what everyone has done!  What a range of diverse artistic techniques and styles.  I just love participating with so many talented people.  =-)

I started with a 10 pack of handmade pressed paper postcard blanks from ArtPapersOnline.com and USArtQuest.com.  First of all, these handmade postcard packs are a wonderful medium to work on.  I just love the texture and variation of the edges and surface.  I stamped the backs with a postcard stamp and went to work on the fronts!  Painting and spritzing, die cutting the trees and heat embossing them with mat and glitter embossing powders.

Next up was napkin collage …

I embossing the surface to add texture, adhered the trees, and added burlap ribbon and little accents.  Followed by a bit more spritzing and glitter (can’t have enough glitter!).   Here are a new pictures of where we started and what was used to create the final cards...

Here is the final set of cards ready to mail off to 9 different artists on Monday.  Can’t wait to see what everyone did with theirs.

Creating with such a variety of artist folks is so much fun!