Cleaning,. Again?

This is what my desk looked like, when I walked into my craft room this morning;

 

Beautiful,. isn't it?... Seriously though, I distinctly remember cleaning it not that long ago! How can something like this happen, when every tool and material has a rightful spot in the room?

 

 

Then the mailman came by - with a package.

Some stuff I'd ordered off metalclay.co.uk

I'd ordered a new 'ceramic fibre blanket', siligum, a couple of shades of the baroque art gilder's pastes and,... polymer clay, of course.

Now, the problem was that when I ordered this, I didn't really know which colors I was running low on - but they had (maybe still have) "20% off" on all Fimo products, so of course I had to get some. I chose to get some of the colors I use frequently; translucent, black, yellow, beige etc.

 

I also got a small package from ebay - the drill bits in the yellow box.

I've been wanting some for a while - would like to do some wood work,.. at some point,.. in the future,.. it's not something I'm planning on starting right this second, but it's nice having the tools on hand when you DO get an idea that just can't wait.

 

My only birthday wish this year (7th of Feb) is a jigsaw. One that can be attached to the table.

My dad and I found a decently sized hobby-version from Dremel. If I don't get it for my birthday, I'll buy it myself :)

 

Anyway - Receiving all those packs of clay made me want to reorganize all of my polymer clay. I stored most of my clay in this unit (left). Sorted by colors, but it was still a big mess; When the number of packs of clay started to exceed the limit for what could be squished into the drawers, I put the rest of them into one of my desk drawers.. Time for change!

I went through all my clay,. put misplaced colors back into the right compartments, grabbed all the unopened packs of clay and put them into the top drawer in my desk.

Most of the compartments in the unit are still filled to the edge, but at least there's a system to it.. and take a look at how many unopened packs I ended up with (right) - seems like I didn't need to order new clay in the first place, haha.. God, I have packs of clay that I remember getting back in the beginning of 2012! and who knew I already had 4 packs of translucent,.. no need for the 2 extra ones I ordered... oh well, I guess I could make some more fruit canes.

 

 

So instead of crafting - I ended up cleaning my desk. It didn't even take that long, and I still had time to start working on a couple of miniatures.

Cleaning,... my work area and a small haul

Cleaning,. my work area & a haul

I've spent the last couple of days cleaning my work area - it had been needing a good clean up for a long time! I'm very messy when it comes to crafting, and I can easily make my desk look like a warzone after only sitting there for a few hours. Usually I just put the stuff back into the different drawers, even if it doesn't really belong there, but this time there were no mercy! I've been going through all the drawers and every corner, throwing away a bunch of scrap clay/materials and some unfinished projects. As much as it hurts throwing so much stuff away, it feels really, really good! You suddenly feel a lot more creative and ready to make new things, when you have a clean desk with everything in its place - And it's so much easier to sit down, relax and immerse yourself in new projects, when your tools are not spread all over the place. 

I'll do my very best to keep everything nice and organized from now on, maybe have a weekly day for cleaning? One thing is for sure; I won't allow it becoming as bad ever again!

So here's my little corner where I do all my crafting. *Cough*, when I'm not sitting on the couch or at the dining table.. Nothing special really, but I like it. Of course I want to one day be able to have an etire room dedicated to crafts. But for now, this is what I have.

On my desk I keep my blades, knives, brushes and other often used tools + my box of scrap clay, pasta machine and a few random items. The 2 black units with many drawers are where I keep my polymer clay and miscellaneous bits and pieces. On top of the unit to the left of my desk I keep all my glazes, glues and liquid cays etc. The small units with 3 drawers in each hold all my ceramic plates, trays, cups and so forth.

Now, for the drawers in the larger storage units, I try to keep it as organized as I can - eg. there's 1 drawer for jewelry supplies, 1 for doll making supplies, 1 for doll hair, 1 for paint, 1 for ribbon, one for sof pastels and some for fabrics - you get  the picture, right? :)
The toolbox below the desk holds most of my paper and cardstock and the pink box on top of the toolbox holds my flower making supplies.

The three larger storage units I have (with drawers) are all from the same supermarket, but I bet many office supply stores carry them. Most of my smaller storage units are from the supermarket I work at, and the small containers are from a bunch of different stores, websites and ebay. I'm always on the hunt for new storage units because I never seem to have enough, and not buying new materials is not an option I'd consider.

It's ironic how the hobby "miniatures" can take up this much space..

I've also received a couple of packages; As you can tell by some of my previous posts I'm really loving the Efcolor enamel, and I decided to buy the Efcolor "oven/stove" set - again from metalclay.co.uk. It comes with the stove, 3 tea lights and a variety of stands/tools. I bought it for a few reasons; 1 - I can enamel anywhere at any time, 2 - I won't have to walk back and forth from my craft area to the kitchen oven, 3 - it's cheaper since the oven is powered by the tea lights.
I'll do some more experimenting before reviewing it :)

I also bought some more fabric - from a different website (though still danish). This time I mainly ordered fabric for miniature shoes and purses, but I also found some cute kids patterns and a few striped and checkered ones.
I love the 2 in the top right corner - it's a snake skin looking pattern (black and dark purple), of course it won't look exactly like snake skin in miniature but I'm sure the pattern will look awesome for a handbag!

Efcolor cold enamel - swatches

Efcolor cold enamel swatches

Earlier this week my second Efcolor enamel order arrived. This time they sent me a small booklet as well, showing how to use the powder, the different colors available and some examples of jewelry made/decorated with the product. I don't know why they didn't send me one of these booklets when I ordered the first batch (I ordered from metalclay.co.uk). Maybe it was because my other order had other things in it other than the efcolor powder, or maybe it was due to the size of this order?

Doesn't matter, I'm not going to use it for anything anyways :)

I now have 23 of the 29 regular (opaque) colors. Other colors available include a few transparent, metallic, texture and glitter shades. Unfortunately the site I ordered from does not have the metallic or transparent ones.

So here are the swatches. The first picture was taken in daylight, the second is daylight + flash. I intentionally picked the second one where you can see the light reflect on the surface of some of the bottom swatches.

The colors I have swatched:

Row #1: Dark red, red, strawberry, Rose pink/bright pink, Old rose, Light pink

Row #2: Brown, Cognac, Orange, Golden yellow, Yellow, Ivory

Row #3: Black, Dark grey, Silver grey, Sand, White, Mallow

Row #4: Dark blue, Pigeon blue, Turquoise, Olive, Light green

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I'm in love with the earthy tones - bet they'll look great as coloring on many different types of miniature plates, cups, bowls and pottery. Will be playing around with some plate making today or tomorrow.

You can expect a couple of posts from me this weekend :)