Organize Your Creative Space

Want to organize your creative space?  Guest blogger Amarilys Henderson, a top teacher on Skillshare and fabric designer is sharing some free and amazing tips to get your creative space working for you.

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Hello! I’m Amarilys, a watercolor artist focusing on surface design, and I want to help you organize your creative space.

What’s In The Way of Your Creativity?

Have you been creative all your life? I have.  Have you given your craft as much time as life permits?  I have.  Have you felt stuck knowing how to get into that happy, creative groove on a regular basis?  I have.  My creative passion felt elusive until I put a few things in order.

It turned out some things were in the way. And much to my surprise, they really were actual things.

The THINGS

Being creative means we enjoy seeing creativity done right. We see its beauty everywhere. There are things we collect that ignite excitement and awe in us, things we purchase with great hopes and joy. These objects are wonderful sparks for our imagination, but they’re not a kindling fire.

The only things that need your continued attention are your tools. Don’t worry, I’m not here to force you to Marie Kondo your every possession and bid it farewell.  On the contrary, I think it’s important to keep your quirky, sentimental, stunning, and varied collection of sparklers. But keep your sparks accessible.  Not visible.  Otherwise you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed or fighting for faith that you’ll ever create something so high.  It hurts your creativity to have a perfect pulse on what others have made and what you have NOT made.

How do I do it?

When you approach your creative space, be it an office, a studio, a den, or the basement, it should carry the fresh aroma of your next beautiful brush strokes or stitches.  It may not be as tidy as mine in this photo (ahem), but it feels peaceful and ready.

 

Organize Your Space

They say new runners should put their sneakers right at the foot of the bed in order to be mentally ready for their morning jog.  You should be no different. Set up your space for your next rendezvous at the end of your current one. Fill that bobbin, thread that needle, and yes, clean up those scraps. Have everything out, eagerly awaiting for your return.

 

Prioritize Your Creative Space by Reach

Sit in your chair and imagine circles around you. Your most important tools should be at your fingertips while everything else is pushed outward.  Prioritize not only by frequency of use (hello, seam-ripper!) but also place things that you’d like to use more often near you.  This was you are prioritizing your dreams, reinforcing your goals.

Arrange Your Creative Space by Hierarchy

“But how do I organize so many scraps??”, my mom often exclaims.  Mom, I hear ya.  But you need to get real honest with yourself.  There are several ways to organize but no matter which you choose, it won’t be perfect.  Select the one that suits you best.

1. Grouping your materials is step one.
2. Arranging them in a way that makes sense to you follows.

– For those who are project focused: Make each project its own little package. Group your thread, pattern, fabric, and all necessary tools into bins by project.

– For those who are visually stimulated: Ah, the beautiful color route. Grouping tools by kind and then arranging objects by color might be that needed eye-candy you need to get going!

– For those who are practical to the bone: When we don’t have time for fluff and want to get right to the good stuff ASAP, organize by kind and arrange by size.  A medium, 3 point, zigzag thingamajigger? Got it! Stat!

– For those who like to dabble:  You may resonate with the “jack of all trades” title, in which case you can simply group your items by kind. Perhaps you create different carts for each

But before we talk organization, you’ll want to better pinpoint your Studio Style! This fun quiz will help you do that. You might really resonate with your label and you’ll find other spaces that would inspire you easily.

An Added Bonus

When you take my ‘Studio Style Quiz’ you also receive free access to my Creative Space class on Skillshare.  I share over an hour of lessons to help you continue on your journey to make your creative space serve you fully. Your creative soul deserves to be nurtured and catered to. It’s only wise (and even fun!) to invest the time in taking a hard look at your stashes, piles, and (cough) collections to squeeze out only those things that really serve your purpose.

Take the quiz now and let me know below what Studio Style result you got.

 

TAKE QUIZ HERE

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