I've been having to find new ways of utilising the space in my studio. With very little wall space available - one long wall has the two fabric cabinets and the door, opposite is the wall with my table and my bookcase, then one short wall has a built in cupboard with no door and another built in cupboard with a door and opposite that is the wall that is pretty much taken up with the window. So finding the space for a decent sized inspiration board has been a bit of a challenge.
The built in cupboard with no door has always been covered by a white rollerblind, which works great spacially and is very cost effective. But when I moved in to this room I decided that I wanted to attach a plain door that I could paint with magnetic chalk board paint (the same as I had in the old studio) and use that as my notice/inspiration board.
However, that hasn't happened yet, and maybe won't at all now, because I've found that the natural place to have the ironing board is in front of the cupboard and having a roller blind there means that I can still get in and out of it without moving the board.
So I improvised and simply pinned amy favourite tear sheets straight on to the roller blind.
Of course I can't roll it up now, but I generally don't anyway, I'm lazy and just pull it to one side, and I can't write on it, but I do like the way it looks and I do think it's a good solution until I come up with something more permanent. And in the mean time I've got another idea for the notice board. I've just got to actual do it.
The other place of inspiration and in this case organisation that I've created is my hanging rail.
I've wanted somewhere to hang fabric swatches for a long time. It always bothered me that I didn't have anywhere in the other studio. But up until a couple of weeks ago I used both of these rails to hang the plastic pots that I keep my scissors etc in. And it hadn't occured to me to use them for hanging and organising the swatches that I'm using for the new collections until I was staring up at my curtains (a constant source of inspiration) one day and realised that those tiny Ikea curtain hooks/clips would fit perfectly on one of the rails and would be the perfect way to hang fabric and pics and drawings and anything else (small) that I wanted.
I did of course go overboard because I was so excited about the idea, and now have a billion (no lie) little clips hanging on the rail, but I can't help it because I love it so much. And you know, the best part is that it cost a total £4 to create. And even better, the roller blind/inspiration board cost £3.50.
I've also come up with a super cheap way of having a 'felt wall' for designing on that I'll show you another day. And who knows, if I manage to sort out the blackboard/notice board situation I'll show you that too!
Oh and I've pretty much solved the cutting table issue. It didn't take much. Just the being bright enough to realise that if I cut at the other end of the table, I have enough space. Duh.
