WOYWW 218

Another Wednesday means another chance to snoop around the world of workdesks. Click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar to find out more.

Not a lot to report this week on my new ARTHaven because the builders have been concentrating on the annexe so we can move Mum’s stuff in, in advance of our own move. It’s all go now and there’s a lot to do.

However, Chris has assembled my last remaining section of large black shelving unit, and organised the free-standing storage area of the room. This is not the pretty side of the room, but it’s against the dividing wall between the ARTHaven proper and the office area, and you don’t immediately see it, until you enter the room.

Much prettier is this:

He’s hung my shabby chic shelving unit that I got on Ebay. I painted it white because the original artificially distressed finish was just that – artificial – the distressing was added randomly and not in places where something would naturally get worn, and it looked horrible! Much better plain white. This area above the blocked-off fireplace is going to be my display area.

You can see a few things that I’ve snuck in ahead of time – my sewing machine, a Really Useful box, a length of guttering that I’m going to use to make my ruler store, and the black thing on the shelf is my new gooseneck camera clamp for holding the video camera.

I can’t put everything in until Tim the electrician has connected up the power points and installed the lights. He’s very busy in the annexe at the moment so I will have to wait. I am keen to get on, because my hubby wants to put stuff in the room where all my ARTHaven stuff is currently stored, and I want to get it sorted before Mum’s stuff arrives on 23rd August – my work will be cut out after that, to get it straight before our main move (no date as yet for that).

So, we’re getting there, slowly but surely!

I haven’t been too well this week – my colitis has been flaring which is a real bore – I’ve got my hospital appointment to see the gastroenterologist next Tuesday and it can’t come soon enough. Also, yesterday morning I woke up with cystitis and had a very unpleasant day dealing with frequent and painful peeing! However, my dear hubby went and got my prescription of antibiotics which I started last night, and after only one dose I started to feel very much better, and this morning it feels quite normal again – amazing! I have to complete the 5-day course, of course, because if you stop when you start to feel better, it can come back again, and worse, because the bacteria develop resistance to the drug. (I wish people would learn this lesson about antibiotics – I am sure that widespread misuse of them has contributed to our current problems with antibiotic resistance. This includes sharing them with others, which is a huge no-no – for starters it means you aren’t taking your full course, and secondly, these are prescription drugs and should never be taken without the advice of a doctor. I am constantly hearing of people who don’t follow these simple rules.)

Happy WOYWW, everyone, and thanks to Julia for organising it again.

My New ARTHaven–Free-Standing Storage

My second of two posts for today. Some more work was done in my new ARTHaven. Chris has assembled the last remaining section of my big black shelving unit – I had gradually reduced this from three sections to one, and I gave the two redundant sections to Wonderwoman, my home help. It’s not the most beautiful object in the world, but it’s strong, large and functional! I am putting the free-standing storage against the dividing wall between my ARTHaven and the office, so you don’t immediately see it until you are actually in the room.

Looking at this, I realised that I had never painted the outside of one panel, but this doesn’t matter because it will be covered by the tall bookcase.

The tall black bookcase, which is part of my black office furniture suite, happens to be exactly the same width as the depth of the black shelving unit, so I have decided to put it in the same position as it was in our present house. The black unit is pretty scuffed and scruffy looking, and I shall probably touch it up with more black paint before I fill it. If you look carefully, you can see one of two diagonal braces that Chris has attached to the back of the unit to stabilise it – when there was more than one section it maintained its square shape. The unit to the left is one that the previous owner left behind in the bathroom. The cupboards contain shelves, as well as it having open shelves.

Amongst my parents’ furniture in storage is a music cabinet which I was planning to put along this wall, between the old bathroom unit and my black shelves, but there isn’t room for it, unfortunately – the bookcase can’t be right up against  the doorway because with the curved end of the new work surface on the other side, there will not be sufficient space to access the room. With it set back a bit, the access is not compromised, and there is also a small space remaining to the left of the old bathroom unit, which I had planned for storing my tall cardboard boxes containing long items like loom bits, tripods, easels, etc. The music cabinet is quite an attractive piece of furniture with cabriole legs and a series of fairly shallow drawers with drop-down fronts, and I measured this before it went into store and determined that my 12 x 12 papers will fit nicely in the drawers. I’m annoyed that it won’t fit in my ARTHaven, but it will go quite nicely on the landing.

Above the free-standing storage there will be a deep shelf the full length of the wall, the height being determined by the old bathroom unit, which is the tallest piece. This shelf will be used for storing large flat things like mount board, cutting mats, etc.

This final wall of my ARTHaven is not beautiful like the rest of the room, but merely functional! It will provide storage for my more bulky items, and things that don’t get used very often, or which don’t immediately fit into a designated work area.

Andy went shopping today and bought some further shelves to go between the two wall units on the further wall of my ARTHaven, should I require more storage in that area, and some brackets for the deep shelf, and for additional shelves in the office section for my ring binders and lever arch files etc.

All in all, I shall have plenty of storage.

In addition to assembling the black unit and arranging the free-standing storage, Chris also fixed up my new shabby chic shelving unit that I bought on Ebay, over the blocked-up fireplace. This will be my display area, for recently-completed pieces, and work by other people. I have got some beautiful miniature easels for displaying small pieces. This area will be changed frequently, and will be the focal point of the room.

If you look very carefully, you will see some items that weren’t there before! Bottom left in the picture is my length of white guttering that I bought months ago for my old ARTHaven and never got round to using – this is going to be cut down and mounted under my main work area as a ruler store.

Above this on the shelf in the wall unit, the small black object is my new gooseneck camera clamp. I have tried clamping this onto the shelf above the main work area, with the gooseneck pointing vertically down, and I think with the camera attached, this will be a good height above the work surface for my video camera. I shall have to experiment but I think with the zoom it may be OK.

Beyond the fireplace, on the work surface, is my sewing machine! This was the first thing I brought in. I can’t bring a lot of stuff in yet, because Tim will need room to connect the new power points to the ring main, and he’ll make a bit of dust installing the new spotlights over the work surfaces (six in all) with LED bulbs. He brought over a sample today – very neat and small, and the LED bulbs, although more expensive than other types, are extremely cheap to run, and give a very bright, clear, blue-white light which will be great for colour accuracy and photography.

On the original shelves above the sewing machine, the screwed up fabric is a curtain which will eventually be removed. On the shelf below, on the left, is a Really Useful Box containing decorative yarns. This corner, going right round to the further end on the right, is the area of my room which will be dedicated to sewing, textiles and fibre – my “clean” work area!

It won’t be long now before I can start bringing things in, and also into the office, once the additional shelves have gone up in there, and the power points have been installed. Watch this space! It’s starting to get really exciting!

Some Craft Equipment

This is my second blog post today, so to see my previous one – more cards from the Card Factory – please scroll down .

Now for this one. I’ve got a couple of very useful tools that I’ve had for a while, and thought you might be interested to hear about them.

Hot and Sticky

A few months ago I got totally fed up with my hot glue gun. It was just a cheap one which was actually on long-loan from someone, and I was returning stuff to him so thought I’d give it back to him, and take the opportunity to get a better one. I found what I thought looked like a brilliant one on Ebay – cordless (which I wanted, as it gives you a lot more freedom) but when it arrived, first of all it wouldn’t work at all, until I discovered that across the inside of the socket where the cord went into the charger, there was a little sprue of plastic which prevented contact being made. It heated up fine after I’d scraped this out. However, as soon as the glue was hot, it proceeded to pour out of the gun at an unstoppable rate! Total rubbish. Even worse than my original one! Managed to get my money back so that was OK.

I launched myself into an all-out search on the Internet for the Ultimate Glue Gun – most of them available in the UK seem pretty rubbishy, and then I found this:

Made by Bosch, it is a Rolls-Royce of a glue gun. OK, it set me back a bit, but it was Worth It! I managed to get it at a very good price online, actually, after a lot of shopping around. In this picture, it is sitting on its charger base. The small white disc just where the cable emerges is nothing to do with the glue gun – it’s a small plastic foot which has fallen off something, and I can’t find out what, so it’s staying there till I do!

Here it is, off the charger – it still stands up extremely well. you can see that there are some glue sticks stored in the base, which is very handy.

This gun has the finest nozzle I’ve ever seen on a glue gun. It is super-comfortable to hold and use (very well designed) and the most amazing thing of all is that it heats up in 15 seconds!!! When I think of the hours I’ve wasted, waiting for glue guns to heat up because I haven’t remembered to turn them on in time… this is super-efficient! I consider it a worth-while investment, as I do use hot glue quite a bit, especially for flower-making and other 3-D work.

Layer upon Layer

The other thing I’ve got, I was given months ago – I did some work for a friend’s mum ages ago, and she and her mum sent me a voucher from a craft supplier, and for some time I couldn’t think what to get with it. Eventually I decided on something that I knew would help a hopeless matter and layerer like myself! (The number of cards I’ve ruined with wonky matting and layering… well, we won’t go there!) It’s called “Perfect Layers” and it does what it says on the tin.

Basically you get three quite substantial clear rulers, about 12 inches long, complete with an instruction sheet. The one design flaw, I think, is that they do not have measurements on them – that would have been really useful! Each edge has steel embedded in it for cutting against, and there are steps along the length of each one, at a different measurement from the edge in each case, so you get 10 different measurements from 1/16 in to 1 in – 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 3/4 and 1 in. That’s a lot of different choices for matting and layering!

What you do is cut your top layer to the size you want, and stick it down onto the mat, not worrying about lining it up, as long as you allow more than enough around the edge for you to cut it down to size. You choose the ruler with the measurement you want, and if you are right-handed, you look for the measurement at the top-right of the ruler. (If you are left-handed, you choose the measurement at the top-left of the ruler.) You place the ruler onto your work, and butt the step against the top layer which is already glued down. Then you take a knife and simply cut along the edge! You repeat for all four sides, and you are done. You can then obviously add more matting and layering as you choose.

I think this is a really cool idea, and the first time I have tried it out for real was on my Dad’s steampunk birthday card back in June – it worked absolutely brilliantly – a perfect result in no time, no measuring, and no stress!

What a lovely gift from two very special ladies. I think of them every time I use it!

Shoshi Rules, OK

Today my hubby bought me a length of white guttering, with some brackets for it, and a couple of end caps. I am planning to cut this to just over 2 feet in length, and mount it on the inside of the solid upright of my work desk, and keep my rulers in it.

I’ve been frustrated for ages about ruler storage. They are too tall to store upright, and on the desk, they keep skidding about and getting in the way. Now I’ve got these three “Perfect Layers” rulers, it’s got even worse! I’ve got my normal 12-in ruler with 16ths all the way along, a Tim Holtz ruler with steel cutting edge, my 15-in ruler with steel cutting edge which I bought when I lost my Tim Holtz one (which I promptly found again, of course!) and a 2-foot metal ruler that I don’t use very often because it’s quite difficult to see the markings on it (and anyway, for my purposes, transparent is more useful – I only had it for cutting against, before I realised that steel-edged transparent ones were available). I shall keep it, though, because sometimes it’s useful to have a nice long ruler.

How does everyone else store their pesky rulers? Mine seem to have a life of their own, and I’m looking forward to taming them at last!