Monday, February 28, 2011

It's finally a studio again!!!

Since mid-January I've been working on a revamp of my studio.  Some of you who follow on Facebook have already seen the finished pictures but I thought I would share the progress.  I did good at taking pictures of the first three steps but got busy and forgot to take "in progress" shots after that but I think you'll get the idea:



The first step was to sand and paint the old waterbed base that was left over from about 15 years ago.  It's just been taking up space in the storage building and I needed something to "lift" the drawer units up so I wouldn't have to stand on my head to get items out of the bottom drawers.  Plus by using the waterbed base, I gained 4 good sized drawers.

I replaced the outdated drawer handles with some nice new antique copper ones.  I got the wrong kind of hinges for the doors so they will have to wait until I make another Home Depot run.

Then I ripped a piece of 3/4 inch plywood to fit the top and trimmed it out with 1 1/2 inch x 1/4 inch wood strips.  Picture 3 shows that in place.  I then covered the plywood with peel and stick vinyl tile.

The finished piece shows 3 Freds drawer units which are screwed together.  The next section is from an old tv cart that I've been using for scrap clay storage.  The shelves are just wide enough for plastic baskets to slide in.  I took the tv cart apart and used just the shelf portion.  You can see how this was previously used in this blog post:  http://harrisonhollowdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/06/studio-remodel.html  The last section are the two cassette cabinets that I repurposed a while back to store my clay in. 

I ripped another piece of plywood, trimmed it out with the wood strips, painted it chocolate brown and covered it with the peel and stick vinyl.  This final piece gives it a nice finished look.

I'll share more on this studio rehab soon.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hearts and Flowers Sale for Valentine’s Day

Don’t you just love the romanticism of Valentine’s Day?  February 14 has become the date for exchanging love messages and a celebration of St. Valentine, the patron saint of lovers. The date is marked by sending poems and simple gifts, such as flowers, to loved ones and secret loves. Use coupon code HOLIDAY15 to get 15% off any item in my Etsy store through the end of Valentine week, Saturday, February 19. 

Friday, February 4, 2011

So much for best laid plans....

In the last post I showed you some pieces that I had made using a new technique with alcohol inks and gold leaf.  I promised to update you as soon as I got some beading done with them.  Well, I casually mentioned to my daughter that I was thinking about taking a plastic storage cabinet out of my studio and replacing it with some wooden drawer units so that I could actually FIND stuff! I told her she could have the storage unit if they would come unload it and haul it away ... and help me get the new storage units set up in the studio.

So last Saturday me, my daughter and her boyfriend spend about half the day tearing my studio apart!  My small project grew -- as they tend to do at my house!  One of those "in order to be able do that, you first have to do this" type situations!!! Talk about a major mess!!! 

Now I have stacks of stuff everywhere -- in boxes and bags, in drawers waiting for their cabinets -- sitting on every available surface all over my studio!!!  I've gotten some of the work done toward getting it all back together -- in New and Improved format -- but since I'm still working fulltime, it's taking longer than I anticipated!  So no beading has been done and no pictures to show you.  Wish me luck over the weekend in getting things back in working order!!!