spice racks and duct tape: the Makery gets a make-over

This week, I carved out some time to put the finishing touches on the office/studio makeover I mentioned in this post from July.

Yep, that's right - it only took me two months to finish. You know how when you go on vacation they say you're on "island time".  Well, my friends, welcome to toddler time.  Anywho, before said toddler gets home from preschool, let me take you on a little tour!

First, the office/studio half of the room...The main change is wall color, changing the paint from a dull off-white to a cool gray, specifically Behr Ultra Polar Drift.  The color is a bit more blue/violet than I anticipated but I've gotten pretty used to it over the last couple of months. 

While I've generally been trying to work with furniture we already have, I did add a couple of key items that have drastically improved my paper storage strategies, namely the printer stand and 9-drawer unit from the Alex series at Ikea.  I've recognized the printer stand in particular in a number of studio images over the last few weeks on various blogs I read so I think it must be a popular solution for anyone who works with flat paper.  This corner I've kept pretty simple/bare for now because I'd really like eventually to have either more wall shelving/storage over my desk or a new desk altogether, preferably one with a hutch. I'd also like a new laptop and/or monitor. Okay? Thanks.

To the left of the printer is my work space, where I assemble new designs, custom orders and the occasional felt project.  The green bins underneath are new - one is for felt and the other one is for...everything else, mostly all my paper punches, various embellishments, stamps, ink pads, and miscellaneous craft supplies.  The space is a little small but works surprisingly well so long as I can keep my work surface clear (that part is a little harder to accomplish).  As you can see there are still a few items on the floor that I'd eventually like to move off the floor, and what you don't see in these images are the boxes and boxes of envelopes and a three-drawer unit of 12 by 12 inch paper in one-half of the room's closet.

I do have a little bit of wall storage, though, in the form of this single shelf, which holds my loose envelopes that I use for new designs, samples, and paper proofs, plus my ribbon and adhesive.  The three support thingys underneath the shelf were really bugging me, so I bought a couple of cork boards to fill the space for tacking up various materials that might inspire a new design or project.

Most of the storage containers I've purchased over the last year or so are from The Container Store, which is like crack for the well-organized (or those who just aspire to be) - their prices are criminal in most cases and yet I bought not one, but two envelope holders for fifteen bucks a pop.

But occasionally I find something on sale and/or a storage solution in a product designed for something else completely, like the three section tray holding my ribbon and rolls of various kinds of tape, or the spice rack I'm using for all of my baker's twine, both found (on sale!) in the kitchen section.  Let's take a closer look at that spice rack, shall we?

Now those are my kind of spices! Pretty fantastic solution to my Twinery habit, if I do say so myself.

The other side of the room is pretty minimal, functioning as guest space for, mostly, my mother-in-law when she comes to visit every couple of months or so.  But wait, there's more!  Is that a houndstooth patterned side table, you ask?  Why yes, yes it is!  The small white table that was there was just bugging me, what with its boring plainness, not to mention the goo left by corner protectors (baby #2, should we reproduce again, might just have to learn to avoid sharp corners the hard way).

So I covered it in duct tape!

$4.99 at Michael's and - voila! - you have yourself a new side table.

In closing, let me just say how much I love this room, this room of my own (kind of). It only took me a year or so to completely kick my husband out of our supposedly shared office (bwahaha!).

fresh from the Makery: because cheerleaders need a little Etsy love, too

It's Tuesday! Oops! Last week, I came across the leftover fuzzy pink pom poms from this project. With Valentine's Day right around the corner and fresh off the heels of revisiting the Chick Flick Notes, I quickly came up with a couple of projects to use up the rest of the pom poms, beginning with my first "art print" in my paper goods Etsy shop:

When trying to think of a project that would utilize the pom poms I naturally thought of cheerleaders and remembered the cheer from the beginning of the classic chick flick, "Bring It On."  I love that movie. So much.  Anyway, this is what I came up with:

The silhouette and text are printed on matte photo paper using my fancy schmancy 8-color inkjet printer and the pom poms are attached via glue gun. Zots would probably be a more archival solution and I may experiment with those but I worried they wouldn't hold as well.  You can get the print, sans frame, in my Etsy shop.  Colors are customizable (I'm thinking high school/college colors?).

Next I used the same silhouette/pom pom/varsity letters idea and applied it to yet another Valentine's Day card, with a decidedly less snarky message inside.

Pink, and more pink! When did I become so girly?

fresh from the Makery: a little lite housekeeping

Okay, maybe this shouldn't count as a new project for the week, but I did reprint some of the Chick Flick Notes that are, once again, in my other shop. So they're kind of new.

Even though the FreshonMondays Etsy shop was started for products that come from Makery projects, regardless of materials used, it's making more sense to me lately that anything graphic design-y or involving paper should go to the RBGColor shop, "design studio and paper crafts" shop that it is, and anything involving felt or other non-paper materials will stay in the FreshonMondays shop. Basically, my scattered web presence is a big branding nightmare. So this is my effort at untangling that presence just a bit. The Chick Flick Notes are now their own category in that shop (you could say I've curated the dozens of quotes a bit...serving suggestions, if you will). I also moved over the Marie Antoinette recycled screenprint proof stationery.

So, anyway, that's that. God forbid I ever edit myself and focus on one thing! That wouldn't be any fun!

fresh from the Makery: you rock!

V-day is only five weeks away! Do you know what you'll be sending to your Valentine yet? How 'bout these folded notes or mini cards, both inspired by the Sweetheart printed candies:

They kind of speak for themselves, don't they? It doesn't help that I only got four solid hours of sleep last night. I promise I'll be more chatty next week!

fresh from the Makery: this week we explore pattern, texture, and glitter

Preparing for the craft sale this past weekend, you could say felt Android phone cases have sort of invaded my work/craft/living space.  But the silver lining to slow sales on Saturday was a bunch of stuff to list this morning, including a facelift on a few existing listings with new images, and several new phone cozies.  For starters, I made a standard droid dude version of my phone case:

Also new is a basic case that includes three colors instead of just two (I've been using a different color for the pocket on all of these limited edition cases so I thought I'd try that on the more basic option):

The original batch of limited edition cases is truly limited since I can't seem to find that patterned felt any longer.  I have enough to make two cases from each combination so they're somewhere between "one-of-a-kind" and "limited edition". "Two-of-a-kind", if you will which, oddly, sounds less, I don't know, special than "limited edition". Doppelganger edition, perhaps?

Anyway, I have found some new textured felt I've been playing with and listed two such cases today, starting with an alligator skin texture in red, paired with a gray Android, lining, and stitching:

The other fun felt find has a cobblestone texture...you know, for that old world effect:

I've got two or three more color combos for each texture that I'll be adding over the next couple of weeks (and/or trying to sell at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire on October 24th).  Finally, I picked up a sheet of glittery, hot pink felt that I toned down a tad by pairing it with a gray droid and lining:

For some reason most of the glittery felt is too stiff to use for a phone case. Why you'd want it pre-stiffened is a little beyond me, but that's why this is the only phone case with that little extra je ne sais quoi that only glitter provides.

What's black and white and hot pink all over?

My new Android phone cozy, that's what!

Finally! I got myself a smart phone and of course it was an Android phone (the Samsung Galaxy to be exact):

And of course I had to make my phone a cozy straight away and of course I went with the "droidette" logo:

And of course it's hot pink:

Well, the droidette is hot pink, as is the lining.  And the backdrop for these images. Too much?

I swear I'm not 13.  I have had an awful lot of coffee, though. In my packing procrastination, I'm getting all sorts of other stuff done.  But this is important.  I couldn't let my brand new phone go floating around in my purse, unprotected by eco-felt, any longer.

So far I'm very pleased with my Samsung Galaxy, although to be fair I'm upgrading from a Razor so it didn't take much to impress me.  But even Neal, who's holding out until he's eligible to upgrade his now old-school G1 in another month or so, seems to like it.  In fact, he can't seem to keep his hands off it. Maybe this girly case will keep him away.

Yep, that's my baby.  Oh yeah, and there's a picture of my kid on it, too.

I spy something hot pink in Berkeley

You know, there's just not enough of this color in the world.  When we went to London a few years ago (three years to be exact...how time flies when you reproduce) I remember being struck by the frequency with which I was able to spot this usually elusive hue in an otherwise, frankly, kind of gray city-scape.  Hot pink on buses and taxi cabs:

In entrances to art museums:

And on outdoor cafe umbrellas (don't these make you want to shake your hips, just a little?):

The other day I realized (and I forget now what I saw but believe me when I say whatever it was it was hot pink) I've been seeing more and more of this color.  Perhaps reconciling the loss of my hot pink Razor (at least my Blue Tooth is still magenta) with the spontaneity gained from having the kind of connectivity I now have with my Samsung Galaxy (an Android phone, naturally), I thought it would be fun to document hot pink sightings. 

First up, then, in the parking lot earlier today outside the Paper Source in Berkeley, this mysterious building next to the AmTrak train station:

The entire building is magenta - it's pretty rad. I would've ventured closer but as you can see, the building is surrounded by a pay parking lot.

PS - You can read more about my thesis related travels here.

PPS - And don't worry.  I'll be sure to dress up my boring black smart phone with a cozy that will definitely include a little hot pink. Or animal print. I'm not sure yet...