Whether your studio is your dining room table, your kitchen island, a card table in the corner of your bedroom or a full room, there are certain things you every studio needs to include.
First is a comfortable chair. Most times when you scrapbook, create jewelry, knitting, or crocheting or whatever other craft you are doing chances are you don’t just work on your project for a few minutes. Most likely you will be sitting there for several hours creating your masterpiece. Your chair should be supportive and comfortable. Folding chairs leave little to be desired for comfort or support, especially for the long term. If, however, a folding chair is what you have to work with, add a cushion to help the comfort level. No matter the look of your chair comfort is the name of the game. My chair in my studio is the ugliest chair in the world. My kids tease me that it’s so hideous. But, it is so comfortable; I can sit there for hours and hours crafting away.
Another essential thing you must have while crafting is excellent lighting, not only to see what you are working on but good lighting also aids in preventing your eyes from tiring too quickly while crafting. You should have good overhead as well as task lighting. Remember that if you are right handed, your lighting should be on your left and if you are left handed your lighting should be from the right. This prevents you from working in the shadow.
Having frequently used tools at hand is another essential thing to think about when setting up your work area. Having a caddy with those essential tools on your work surface, easily at hand will help your creativity flourish since you won’t have to stop what you are doing, loosing your train of thought, to get the tools you need.
Organizational items in your area are always good to have, but which organizations tools work the best? That is the million dollar question and something you will have to research. My best advice is to use the area for a length of time to see what you need before you go shopping for those adorable organizational items. Start out with things from around the house that you recycle and give a new life to or the least expensive organizational items until you have an idea of what you need. I cannot tell you how many times I have purchased items for my studio to “get me organized” only to find that they didn’t work for me. A lot of times the simplest things, recycled things actually work the best -- baskets, jars, cans, and bottles are some of my best organizational items in my studio.
Things to consider for scrapbookers:
Do you want to store your paper horizontally or vertically?
Are you going to store embellishments by theme, color, or manufacturer?
Will you be taking things to crops outside the home regularly?
Do some of your tools require separate organization?
Things to consider for beaders:
How do you want to store your beads? By color, type, or manufacturer?
Separate store for findings and stringing options?
How will you display completed jewelry?
Having a separate room for crafting is ideal but not everyone has the space for such a room. If you do not have the ability to have such a room make sure you account for that when setting up your work area. You will then need a way to those incomplete projects away without marring it until you can return to it later. Being able to leave your project incomplete where you know it won’t be disturbed is wonderful, and believe it or not, you will be able to get so much more work done since you won’t have to take your project out and put it away every time you want to work on your project.
No matter the space you have, make time and space to craft!
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