Artistic Endeavors 101: Awesome Studio Storage From the Recycling Bin...

Redoing the studio gets a girl dreaming.

At least it gets this girl dreaming.

Every artist wants that Pinterest worthy, picture perfect, naturally lit dream studio.

See my Pinterest Board here:

Dream Studio Ideas

Reality is a whole different story.

Remember....

My actual studio style is....

PILES.

and

STACKS.

And

More Piles.

But a girl can dream, right?

Sometimes she can even do a little something about it.

Not too long ago, while shopping at Sam's Club, I found this awesome 3 tired galvanized stand back on the clearance shelves.

I was in love.

Only one left.

$24.90

Not as cheap as I would like, but reasonable.

Suddenly I remembered I might have a gift card from Christmas.

I put the stand in my cart so no one else could scoop it up while I went digging.

In my wallet.

For a card...???

Maybe?

Yes!

A $25 gift card.

My mother-in-law would be so pleased to have gotten me such a fantastic gift that I am going to like so much!

So I brought it home.

My husband just sort of shook his head.

It will be perfect for my studio.

Or parties.

Or on the kitchen island.

Then it sat sadly on the floor in my garage while I dreamed of a clean studio for weeks.

Now that I am organizing, it has a new home.

On my little rolling cart.

On top of the pretty new blue cutting mat my daughter bought me for mother's day.

Right now it is filled with coffee filter flowers and burlap flowers and scraps....

But I wanted more tiered stands....

So I spied a silver lazy Susan cake stand that I got at the thrift store this winter.

Among the piles on the garage floor.

I headed to the recycling bin.

And back to the garage for a couple silver plates and platters.

I began stacking and re-stacking until it worked.

Here are the before materials:

Excuse the dew on everything.

I washed them with a hose and then left them outside overnight.

Took the photos in the morning before the dew burned off.

Next came a couple light coats of white spray paint.

Now things look like this....

I wanted everything to have a white base coat.

The cans look OK.

But I LOVE the trays...

They look just so pretty.

I almost changed my mind about using them...

I decided I will enjoy them more if they are being used every day...

Next I assembled my decorating materials:

a burlap bag, lace, images from the Graphics Fairy I printed on muslin with my printer, my glue gun, old hymn pages, some buttons and twine, a cupcake wrapper for wings, a wee bit of glitter and a couple twisted fabric flowers.

Decorating was fun once I got the burlap the right size for each can.

I just wrapped the burlap around each can and glued it in place with the glue gun.

Then I added and glued other goodies until I liked the look.

To assemble the whole thing, I did not want to make it permanent.

So....

I got out some magnets and pried them apart.

I put several on each can to secure it to the stand.

I planned to use earth magnets for the center ones to keep them in place securely.

That did not work out as planned so I did use the glue gun to secure the center cans.

Then I wrapped twine around the glue to hide it.

Then I added my goodies.

Bakers twine in old sugar shakers.

Markers and pens.

Pencils and scissors.

TA-DA!