Day 138- Storage And Studio

I have to warn you, this post has no pretty pictures. Also, it is interesting only to those who like peeking under the carpet, you know the place where you hide all the things you don't want others to see.

These pictures were taken on the day I decided to start on Termite House. When it takes you longer to look for something than it is for you to resurrect old bananas , you know it is time to sort and pack your materials properly. And so I began. With the one material I own the most of, beads.

The boxes in my top pic (and I often use a good one for the 1st pic because it is the one everyone sees in her dashboard) are the prettiest ones I own. So I keep my ugliest beads in them.

These are clear plastic boxes I bought at the S$2 store. Here on, I packed my beads according to where I bought them from. The ones in these boxes are from my favourite beads store in Chinatown. I packed these according to types.

The plastic beads below were bought in a tub from Ikea way before I was into mini. These, I put them into different boxes or plastic bags according to colours.

Before I found the fancier clear boxes, I had used a child's shoe box and a mooncake box for the metal beads from Chinatown. I stuffed so many into the wooden moon-cake box that it has fallen apart, literally bursting at its seams. Now I put the really tiny beads (silver and bronze) into this box. The ones in the shoe box are what I call the "item" beads. You know, beads shaped like items eg tiny locks, shoes, angels and tea pots.

One of my all time favourite containers are pizza boxes (left pic below). I would often shout from across the room at friends or family just about to dig into their slice of pizza not to dirty the boxes. Pizza boxes are hardy and flatter and pretty to look at. I keep my expensive beads which I bought at Spotlight in this box. Those were bought before I discovered the cheaper Chinatown store.

When I am desperately short of boxes, I will use the ugly ones that come with tools, like the one above right for my hand-drill which I use to store my bigger beads.

Now all these boxes, I kept neatly in this cabinet. I am happy to see that there are some more space in there for fresh beads.

This is the desk housing the "bead" cabinet and it has 2 drawers and 2 cabinets which are filled with things related to minis. And since I am showing you one storage space, I might as well show you all. Can you see the Thai silk cloth covering something sitting on a chair? Well, those are boxes of minis underneath the cloth.

The little drawers at the bottom of my book cabinet (left pic above) are where more materials are, like floral tapes, soldering iron and boxes of scotch tapes or minis. Even the drawers in my wine cabinet (right pic above) are not spared. I store my journal of mini expenses, receipts and call cards there.

I have so much glue I needed to devote one whole cupboard to them. It is not very big but it is a luxury just for glue.

All the cupboards that I have shown so far are placed at various parts of the dining room.

This one however is outside the house. This is the mother of all my mini cupboards and as you can see, it's my largest. This is the one I store most of my tools, paints, trash for future minis and boxes of real minis.

Sometimes when I want to see how messed up I am while working on minis, I open this cupboard which has a full length mirror on the left side. This cupboard is also placed next to my favourite work station, The Steps. It is also very near The Kitchen Table and The Garden Table. Here is a montage of my various work stations.

You can see my work-in-progress tribal house at The Garden Table. This was taken last week. More work has been done to the roof and windows since.

We are now on the way back to The Dining Table, but since this is en route, let me show you The Holding Area.

The Holding Area which is the middle shelf is where I put my material and tools when I cannot finish working for the day. You can see from the closeup on the right that I do not wash my palettes which are really plastic holders and cups for a dessert called mango pudding. Since I am addicted to mango pudding, I will never run out of palettes, so why wash them, right?

This is the other thing that I hardly wash, my apron on the left which is the one I work with. The one on the right given to me by Rosanna is used as a "camouflage" to hide my dirty one which I hang behind Rosanna's after I am done for the day. I guess now you know all my dirty secrets.

As we turn around the corner from the Holding Area, you will see The Other Studio, the one I use most of the time to take my pictures. Can you recognise the wooden bench.?

You can't see it but facing you on the wall is a photograph of this space. So you are staring into a picture of The Other Studio with it staring right back at you! That's why this area is also known as The Twilight Zone.

And finally, The Dining Table aka The Main Workstation. This is where I work on my minis most of the time, especially last year when I was "building" the Bazaar. This is the table where I displayed all the stalls.

Today however, I have to pack up early. Just the morning for some painting because today, we are using the kitchen for cooking, at long last! Brewing in the pot is mum's recipe and my favourite chicken curry.

And later in the evening, the dining table will be laid out, not with newspapers and paints but for six friends to enjoy a sumptuous dinner, clever conversations and a good laugh.

Cin cin!

I don't know how a post on beads ended up with dinner for 6. I am sorry if I have bored you. As you can see, getting carried away is a big part of my nature.