Reorganizing your workspace can be one of the most horrendous tasks but it can also be full of the greatest surprises! My goal for this week is to get our office and studio back in order so we can create without having to find a few square inches of workspace.
With new equipment, a new heavy duty bench vice with interchangeable block, and ring and bracelet mandrels, and our new kiln just begging for us to start firing up some metal clay, I had to make the decision to sacrifice some design time for clean-up and organization.
We found our workbench at an inventory sale at a community college. So if you need to locate a great workbench with electrical strips and a carpeted work surface for safety, try to find electrical class workbenches from a school or company that is replacing equipment and furnishings. We got a great deal; only $30 bucks each and they are sturdy with large locking drawers.
To make it easier to organize everything, we filled plastic shoeboxes with similar items and then labeled them all with what was inside; this way even if the boxes are stacked on higher shelves it will easy to know what is in each one. Next, we got some of those great metal organizers with lots of drawers (you know the kind for nails and screws for the garage), and sorted out lots of small findings, shells, rocks, and the sea glass for our beach line. Using old metal file shelving, we sorted our plastic ribbon holders and lined them up making it so much easier to cut lengths of ribbon without having our ribbon rolls laying all over the workbench.
One of my greatest finds for organizing supplies was an old Simplicity, 4-drawer file cabinet from a fabric store that was going out of business. We placed an expensive particle board paper organizer on top of the file cabinet where we store a variety of papers, transfer and sticker papers for use in our color printer, and a variety of photo quality papers.
The drawers in the pattern cabinet had metal dividers that kept the patterns separated for easy categorization. So we decided we needed some bigger sections and removed a few to make some of the areas a bit larger. The picture below is one drawer opened to show how we were able to organize the supplies.
Pretty awesome, eh? Can’t believe how much I have been able to accomplish in just 2 short days. About half done and excited to finish up with all the organizing and labeling. I am actually able to find anything I need without playing the guessing game or flipping a coin to determine where I put something. The other Divas and even my son were totally surprised when they saw the change.
Well, darlings . . . check back in a few days and see how the process ended up. Happy times!
The Divas -Kathy, Kristin & Emiley
The 3 Funky Divas 
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