My Stamping Studio

I am a member of the RSA Stamping Group and was asked recently to take some pictures of my studio. So here goes on my first post.I love my studio and spend a lot of time in it. It has unfortunately now grown to small to store all my cardmaking stash, so I plan to build a new one early next year, but that is going to take a lot of planning, which is the fun part.

There are quite a few changes that I will be making so it will be fun to look back at these in a years time.

The picture above shows my desk which looks out onto my garden, when I have the blinds open. At the back of my desk I store my most popular ink pads - Brilliance, Adirondack, Memories and Tuxedo and on top of the storage units are my jars of flowers - I just adore Prima flowers especially. To the left of my desk is a built in storage unit which holds my plastic folders with Unmounted stamps arranged by company and also some of my scrapbook paper in flip files. Above my desk is a shelf for my chunky books that I have participated in with the RSA Group - I just adore making Chunky books - its always such a joy to see what other people come up with on the theme chosen.

Behind my desk are my storage cupboards for my mounted rubber stamps which I store in leopard print boxes from Merrypak. In the new studio I will be changing the boxes to a black and white pattern box from Merrypak. They are sorted mainly by theme ie Angels, Marine, Clothing etc and in some cases by Stamp Company. There are rather a lot of them and I need a ladder to get to the upper ones. The bottom 4 or 5 rows are open ie no doors on the unit, but above that there are cupboard doors.

Now one of my other passions is magazines and books - this bookcase just holds my stamping magazines and books and is jam packed full, which is just one of the reasons I need more space. The magazines are all in the Leopard print magazine holders from Merrypak. The Gold/Bronze files you can see on the shelves, are my cataloging system for my rubber stamps. Each time I get a new rubber stamp, I stamp the image and record the date and cost and then add it to the file or should I say files - they have rather grown in number over the years. I find this system works very well for me as if I am looking for a stamp I just browse through the files and choose my stamp that way. What I should have done in retrospect was also scanned the image into the computer as that would make life a lot easier - something to put on my to do list. The bookcase is again floor to ceiling, so I have to use my ladder to reach the upper shelves. Those ink pads that are not housed in the storage units at the back of my desk are in my drawers underneath my desk - to either side of my chair for easy reach- I seem to collect ink pads but always end up using my favourite Brilliance range and the color box ink pads for edging my cards.

Heres another shot of the area to the left of my desk which shows the start of my stamp boxes behind my desk. The cards on the memo boards are various cards I have made or received over the years.
In the picture above you can also see Teddy(another thing that I collect) sitting on one of my favourite tools - my Big Shot. So glad I choose the Big Shot over other die cutters. I also have the Cricut Expression but that is in the computer room as it doesn't fit in the studio. Behind the Big shot are the shelves for my Sissix dies and next to the Big shot you can just see 1 of a few paper stands that I have, that I store paper 14x14 in, which I find is the perfect size for my square cards.

Well I hope that you enjoy this brief tour of my studio space.