Starting at the very beginning: project desk

Before you can start to be creative, you need a space to do it in, right? I have a desk which has just served as a clutter magnet for the last four years since I last used it as a student. The poor thing has been so neglected, it practically cried tears of joy when it found out I intended to clear it out, give it a bit of TLC, fill it with lovely things, and then actually use it!

Here is how my poor little desk used to look:

The wall has also attracted random junk - postcards, fliers, photos, cards, you name it I've blu-tacked it to the wall. It's been like this for years, these things are barely sentimental any more!

A couple of days later, and here is the space now. It's been re-vamped and filled with all of the creative tools and materials I could possibly fit in:

And the wall got some attention too, all the old rubbish being scaled back and cut down to just the things I think are beautiful or inspiring, and a couple of bits of my artwork:

I also cleared out my desk tidy. This might not sound like a big job, but I had three pencil cases and a desk tidy filled with pens of many varieties, and I laid them all out on the desk and weeded out the broken or empty ones and organised them into different types. The regular pens, fountain pens, pencils and micro-pencils made it into the desk tidy. The magazine box has folders I keep my work in, and whichever rough writing pad I have on the go:

My crochet bag doesn't have a home yet. I only just nominated it as a crochet bag! It's just a bog-standard washbag from Boots which came in a set of three - the other two are both red but it was this one I bought the set for as I thought the pattern was really pretty:

The top drawer now has functional stationery, including my long ruler, calculator and DL envelopes. The boring, officey stuff that everyone needs now and again:

I like this drawer. It has my A5 and A4 sketchbooks and pads, and my most prized colouring materials: a set of watercolour pencils and some brushes, a 36 pack of Crayola pencils, and my beloved Staedtler sets:

This is my notebook and writing drawer. It has some of my many beautiful (and as yet unused in some cases!) notebooks, a project book and some old notes and plans:

This shelf has my cameras, sewing box and correspondence box:

I have a few art box style sets with sketching materials, watercolours, oil paints and charcoal. I also have my more used beautiful notebooks for Japanese, poetry, writing and (in the case of the gorgeous brown one) admiring!

Compartmentalised storage! I love it. One of the blue ones currently contains the overspill of pens and coloured pencils and the clear one is empty right now but I intend to put some card-making paraphernalia in it. Unless I think of something else in the meantime! I also have my address book on here, which is handy:

I was really excited to start the clear out and be able to use my desk. It's given me the chance to see where the gaps are in things I need and also to get rid of a fair bit of junk. I've already spent a happy couple of hours setting up this blog while sitting at it! And I hope that now I have a lovely area to work in there'll be plenty more coming for me to put on it.