Blog: Workspace Wednesday | Mandie Pierce

Hi, all! Mandie here with a little tour of my work space. Being a military family who is always on the move means my space changes with every move. The house we are in now is our third house in three years. (No moving this summer – hallelujah!) This is what my current space looks like:

It is the first thing you see when you walk into our house, which drives me a little crazy because it always has to be neat and tidy; but at least I have the space. It is joint craft and office space. Our albums take up most of the available wall space in here, which I guess isn’t a terrible thing. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for hoarding extra things. It’s a little eclectic, probably like me and the rest of our house. When you move often and every house has a different layout and size, that tends to happen. And, yes, if you spotted it in the background, we DO have a mini leg lamp on the desk and Seinfeld quotes on the entry table. Like I said, eclectic!

There are so many different things going on in here that a full tour would be a novella; so I thought I would just show you how I organize my Studio Calico kits and the favorite thing on my desk/table. So, let’s start with my kits. I keep them in two different places. The papers and all larger items stay in the kit envelopes and go into the wire basket on the tall shelf.

I keep all of the smaller bits in my trusty Alex cart from IKEA, sorted in some trays I found in the closet section at Target. I’ve kept them sorted this way for years, but I am pretty sure Target still carries them. For lack of wall space in this house, I took the wheels off of my cart and put it under my work table. When I want to work with a particular kit, I take out the envelope and the tray. I use to keep a single kit in a drawer: papers on one side, embellishment tray on the other. But, with a lack of wall space, I lost a smaller Expedit shelf to another room, and I needed to be able to store more in my cart.

My favorite thing on my desk is this metal tray. It is from Target and is actually intended for gardening. When I passed by it, I thought it would be perfect for storing things on my tabletop.

I filled it with little bowls from Target. (I know… Target. Shocking!) I started out saying, “this bowl is for this” and, “this bowl is for that.” Now they're mostly filled with a lot of bits and pieces: flair, left over pieces from kits, etc. But I do have all of my Color Theory mini pigment inks in one of the bowls and the paints in another.