Tips and Tools - Corralling the Studio Chaos - DayThree - The Unusual

 I promised you the unusual

so here it is.

This vintage wooden turned flower frog,

is a perfect addition to my studio.

It's holes are just the right size for my hand made

repose and chasing tools.

The vintage glass frog above works well

for holding small tools.

This antique stamp holder now holds some of my pliers

and snips.

While junking one day I picked up this

kitchen knife block, lazy susan. 

I thought it might make a nice tool organizer. 

These small springs fit very nicely

in an old shot glass.

This wooden mortar lost it's pistal
while gaining other jeweler's tools.

Sometimes it is nice to have a container that will hold
 works in progress.
I am enjoying this vintage wooden divided lazy susan for
just that purpose.

This Mancala game was thrown out 

because it no longer had its glass game pieces.

I grabbed it up of course, after all it is wood and has

small dividers.

It works wonderfully for jewelry projects. 

One of my favorite game pieces in the studio
is this old wooden Cribbage board.
It is excellent for corralling my flex shaft tools.

This vintage drying rack has been in my studio
for years. It has held ribbion,
chain, bead strands and even tools.
Today it is working as a wire station.

Now that the studio is all clean and organized
it is time to start connecting some
of those many pieces.

Tips and Tools - Coralling the Studio Chaos - Day Two - Boxes

I have such a wonderfully peaceful feeling when I walk 

into my studio and everything is clean and organized.

Today I would like to share with you some of the things 

I use to organize my main studio.

One of my favorite pastimes is to go antiquing and junking.
 I love the feeling of going back in time as I rummage through
 things once loved and cherished. 

When I walk through a yard sale, junk store,

or an antique mall wonderful treasures of the past jump out at me.

Some of these treasures are wooden boxes.

The boxes that I have collected can be as large as a cabinet
 or as small as a pill box. 

The Primitive cabinet above works very well

for housing things I need but don't necessary

want to see.

The boxes I bring home are not always perfect.

They are often worn and scarred by time

bringing that old world charm to my studio.

This hand carved box has six dividers and

 works very well  holding some of my glitters.

I use to have a lot of small plastic containers in my 

studio. (We use what we have, right.)

The plastic boxes and containers worked but they just were not 

what I wanted my studio to look like or feel like.

While walking through a Goodwill store one day I noticed

several old wooden jewelry boxes. 

I bought them,

 brought them home, and they worked perfectly

for all the tiny findings I use for my jewelry.

The wooden cigar box is another favorite box of mine.

This antique "step back" cupboard has open shelves

and is the perfect place for some of my boxes.

I enjoy having easy access to so many of the 

small items that I work with.

This vintage sewing box has a lot of

separate compartments. It works well for holding

my tags and cards.

Other boxes that work well in the studio are

old crates. They can be turned on their sides

 making cubbies for all kinds of things.

With a board placed on top of these crates I can then 

place my old tool boxes on top of the crates.

This antique tool box holds my stamps and inks.

The typesetter drawers are perfect for corralling things

like keys, game pieces, charms and beads. 

These two boxes are the newest additions to my studio.

The bottom cabinet is an antique

library card filing cabinet.

Now it is filling old typewriter pieces.

This five drawer box below is an antique drug store

label box.

The drawers of this box are the prefect size for all my 

tiny screws, bolts, springs, hinges, screw eyes and more. 

Well, that is all for today.

Tomorrow I will share some things

 you may have not thought of to use in a studio.

Tips and Tools - Corralling the Studio Chaos - Day One - The Fibers

Okay!

 I have to believe that 

most artists and crafters have an 

occasional day when their work space

explodes!
I know mine does from time to time.

For the next two or three days I will share with you

 some of the tools I used to corral my clutter

in the studio.

I will start with how I store

my fibers.

As you may know I am a mixed media artist

working with all kinds of materials.

 It is very important that my fibers are not exposed

to my metal or wood elements.

I have remedied this problem by storing all my fibers 

in a nice size walk in closet. 

 It has open selves built from floor to sealing

which allows me to see all my fabrics, leather, 

laces, yarns, ribbon and twine. 

I have re-purposed old baskets that I made many years

ago, they now house my antique and vintage laces, dollies

and hankies.

I found a corner in my fiber closet 

for all my reference books and catalogs.

Just in front of the books sits an old chest

that my mother used for my baby clothes.

It is small and prefect for all my sewing things.

A drawer for knitting needles, 

a drawer for crochet needles,

a scissor drawer and a

miscellaneous drawer for sewing items.

On top of this dresser I have used 

vintage cedar boxes for sewing notions, pins and needles

and sewing machine items.

Labeled boxes sit high on my shelves.

 They store things that I do not use often

 like ribbons, old belts and scarfs.

I moved my yarn from the shelves to this

canvas shoe rack. This freed up shelf space

for more of my fabrics and also helped 

me to sort my yarns by color. 

The vintage ties that I use in some of my work

are light weight and hang nicely on hangers

after they are opened and pressed.

The hangers rest on clear thumb tacks.

The hanging wire rack works well

for the ties that have not yet been opened and pressed.

The antique spools!

 I have had these wooden spools sitting around for years.

I recently used one of them in a bird sculpture.

While cleaning the studio I decided what better way

to use these spools then the way they were first intended.

Stools are always useful in a studio.

This small antique stool fits wonderfully on one of my shelves

it works to lift spools up so that I can see them.

Other things can be placed under the stool or in front it.

This re-purposed basket 

holds all of my leather pieces.

So there you have it.

The fiber closet is cleaned and organized.

I can now close the door and move on to

the main room of the studio.

See you tomorrow!

Connecting Pieces - Boutique - OPEN

Connecting Pieces 

E-Shop is

now open.

This is where you can buy my

 one of a kind 

art jewelry.
 With just a point and a click
you will find that original piece of jewelry
you have been looking for.
 Look to the right hand side of this

page, you will see a badge
  like the one above.
 It says, "shop the pieces",
 push that button.

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Now you have entered the

 Connecting Pieces

Boutique.

I hope you enjoy your visit.

 Each piece has a story tell

 so sit back with your

morning joe or afternoon tea and 

stay awhile.

Come back often because the pieces

are always changing.

connecting-pieces.com

Look What Just Arrived in my Studio

I am now the owner of this
 hand made antique jeweler's bench

 and it now sits in my studio.
This is an account of how I obtained
and then cleaned this jeweler's bench.

August the 19th was my daughter Rachel's birthday.

Rachel wanted to go junking for her birthday.
 My mom, daughter in law Felicia

 and Rachel took our seats in the Ford Flex
and headed out for

an adventure.

 Felicia had never been 

junking so she really did not know what 

she was in for.
We dragged her to garage sales, yard sales,

 storage sales, estate sales

and even a foreclosure sale.
 We saw some good stuff,

 some bad stuff and a lot of dirt.

Felicia was a trooper.
 Before we wrapped it up for the day

 I thought we all needed a trip to an antique store.
  That is were I found this piece.

When I saw this cabinet in the antique store all I was 

thinking was,"I have to have this piece, the price is right

and it is wonderful."

I did not look in the drawers and I did not have a flash light.

(lesson learned)

As you can see when I got this piece up to my studio

I was in for a lot of sweet equity.

This was the dirtiest piece of furniture I have ever come across.

I started the cleaning by wiping the whole thing
 down with Murphy's Oil soap.
That is when I saw that several of the drawers needed
to be repaired.
I was able to fix them with a
 little wood glue and some wire brads and all was well.
While fixing the drawers I realized just how dirty
they were (dirty is being kind).

I was going to have to resort to drastic measures
 to get the inside of these drawers clean.
(Now I do not suggest doing this, I only got
away with it because the wood in this cabinet
is a good hardwood).
I used a spray bleach and a small amount of water
with a scrub brush.
I would spray, scrub, then rinse with a very small amount of water.
Then I would wipe out the drawer and remove all the water.
 I would then came back with more bleach
and a tooth brush so that I could get into the corners.
With a scrubbing sponge I scrubbed some more.
This was quite a process and took a long time
but it did work and my drawers are very clean.

 The outside of my cabinet needed some more cleaning as well,
years and years of wax and grime were evident.
I had already used the oil soap but it needed something more.
I didn't want to remove the
aged patina or ruin the "look",
so I took a sanding sponge and lightly sanded the hole piece.

I then vacuumed the cabinet and removed all the
remaining dust with a damp cloth.

Now it was time for the fun part.
Time to wax.

Here you can see the left half of the cabinet is waxed
while the right side is not.

 My cabinet is clean and waxed.
It smells so good!
I am a happy girl.

As a side note,
 while I was cleaning
this wonderful piece I found a secret
drawer and that my cabinet had been signed.

Happy hunting!