MFT Creative Chat - Creative Space

It's time for the MFT Creative Chat. The My Favorite Things Design Team Creative Chat is a monthly feature, where we are challenged to explore our creative spaces and share valuable organizational methods, tools, and shopping strategies with you. You'll be able to peek into our creative spaces, ask questions, and share your own ideas in the MFT forum.  This month, we were asked the following questions:  

Show us your desk.  How do you have things set up, and why?  

What are your "go-to" tools?  Tell us what you can't live without.

Visit Kim's Blog for a full list of designers that have taken up the challenge and get ready to delve into the minds of our creative team.

Welcome to my little crafting space!

My crafty part of the house is in our upstairs loft, right next to my daughter's room - you can see her ever-growing artwork mosaic on her doors.  We bought this hutch and office desk a few years ago when my papercrafting supplies were starting to take over and overflow everywhere when I just had a computer desk.  I LOVE this desk and it has so many drawers and compartments that I have lots of room for my supplies to grow into.  In the photo above, you can see the little shelf up in the hutch that hangs between the two doors and in the little nooks, I keep my acrylic blocks, and little odds and ends.  On top of the shelf is my ribbon and 6x6 papers.  All of the things I use most are right there within arms reach, so let me show you a few of my favorite "go-to" tools.

First up are my ink pads and Copic markers - if you visit my blog lots, you know almost every image is colored with Copics and stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  I picked up these little Quickutz storage boxes at Overstock.com a while ago and when I went to buy more, I found out they were discontinued!  NO!!

To the right of my computer are all my dies, stamp cleaning pads, design team stamps for the month, and then of course all my scissors!  I have separate scissors for ribbon, paper, foam tape, and everything else.  Keeping a separate pair of scissors for ribbon keeps the blades sharp and you won't get frayed edges.  Paper really will dull a scissor blade, so you don't want to mix the two.

In the pull-out drawer where a normal person would put their computer keyboard, I have my Scor-Pal, which is SO handy for making all sorts of different projects.  I have the self-healing pad in the tray where I do all my gluing and assembly.

Right above the drawer are a couple of things I use.  First is my Janome Sew Mini, which I'm using more and more.  I wasn't a sewer before, so I'm still learning how to keep those stitches straight and occasionally the tension gets all wonky and I get strange effects, but I'm learning.

Next to the sewing machine is my Big Shot, which I use for EVERY card.  It's perfect for all those Die-namics dies that I'm collecting and apparently this beast needs to be dusted.  LOL!

Last is my Carl Cutter, which is the best purchase I made for a cutter.  I LOVE it!  I used to mass produce cards and it cuts several sheets of cardstock at once.  Now I just use it for single cuts, but they are smooth and perfect. 

I hope you enjoyed my little tour and now I'm off to make a mess of things and create!

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen