Every woman needs a creative space.

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Setting aside a dedicated space for sewing and crafting is, to me, the difference between enjoying your project and completing it versus a stash of “someday” dreams and unfinished projects.

A “creative space” means different things to many people. I know lots of women who have sewing rooms, even large studios,  but whether your space is a separate, dedicated room, or just a small work table in a common area, the 2 most important functions it should serve are providing you the opportunity to personalize it, and having the freedom to walk away and come back to your work, undisturbed, when both time and inspiration are on your side.

I love painted furniture, this pink cabinet houses my stash of buttons, sorted by color, my scrap-book materials and boxes full of crochet embellishments, ribbons and trims.  Clear containers and a label maker are indispensable tools for organizing!  Vintage purses are another favorite for filing, sorting, grouping and transporting odds and ends I need for teaching.

Magazines, blogs, Flickr and other photo sharing sites are full of beautifully arranged and organized craft/sewing rooms of all sizes and for all types of crafts.  The following links are fantastic and dreamy..

Pink Studio, Quaint Handmade , here you will find photos of her lovely guest room/sewing room.  Her blog is also full of some of the most beautiful photography I have ever seen.

The Domestic Diva , she provides links for designing your craft room, chosing color, organizing techniques.. awesome information.  Plus, great sites to visit to see what other sewer’s rooms look like.

Flickr: you can spend hours here, I entered Creative Spaces and found a “pool” of kindred souls.  Click the link to see a wall of buttons I love!

For me, it’s about soft pastel colors, antique and vintage textiles, beautiful pottery that store my utensils, tools that match my color pallete, down to notepads and pencils and clips!

This is an imortant subject to me and one that I will talk about regularly on my blog.  Until a crafter feels inspired, comforted, and free to work, frustration overrides the joy of the project itself.  I encourage you to claim your space, surround yourself with what you love, organize it and maintain it!

More on this later!

Fall colors

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Traveling last month to Houston and listening to people compare the hot weather there to the different places they were from made me think of the cool fall weather and beautiful fall colors that I was leaving behind. 

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and I love that living in the Kansas, we get to enjoy all of  the four seasons.  Living in the country, we also get to see so much wildlife!  There is a family of wild turkeys that have been passing by my dining room sliding glass door on a regular basis, and I have watched them grow!

Mark and I keep busy year round, but the fall gives us a special treat.  The hedge apples are everywhere!  The color is amazing, but the work of “harvesting” our “Kansas cabbage” I could do without.

I was listening to some of the ladies at the quilt shop talking about making decisions about what colors go well together, one of them insisted, all colors work together, just look at nature!  I look at color a little differently when I think of it that way.  No one does color better than mother nature.