Monday, May 10, 2010

Studio Tour


I have been wanting to give you a tour of my in-home studio where KaratStix is created so today I am finally going to show you around. In this first photo this is what you see when you first walk in. I usually sit in the chair in the corner there behind the L-shaped layout of tables/stands with a red carpet under my feet. The walls and ceiling are covered in cedar paneling (original to the house which was built in 1941) and the wooden floor is oak. It is also a good place to store my yarn stash which is in baskets on a shelf above the windows - the cedar keeps the moths away.
When I am sitting in my chair I have everything close at hand. Here is a view of my coloring station where I have a variety of pencils and other tools handy for working on the bamboo tools. The printer which is hooked up to my computer is used for printing my shipping labels, and scanning the finished orders for posting photos in my Etsy shop.

This area in the photo to the left is where I do my digitizing for my new designs and layouts for the orders that need to be cut, as well as all the administrative tasks such as emails, updating my Etsy shop and all the other tasks that take place online like generating postage labels, purchasing supplies, paying bills, etc. I also have a supply of knitting needles here which are used for testing the knitting needle gauges.
The photo to the right is my spray booth. I just swivel my chair around (it is on wheels) so that I am facing my spray booth. It was built by my husband to fit on the outside of the window and has an electric fan on the roof of the spray box. I use an airbrush and a small compressor to apply the varnish on the finished KaratStix pieces. That is a portable Ott light to give me good lighting inside the booth when I am spraying.
The photo to the left shows the drying racks with products drying on them that have been sprayed. I use cut up cardboard boxes as drying boards and then put strips of masking tape to hold the items in place so that they don't move when I am spraying the varnish on them. The drying racks are within arms reach from the spray booth.

The photo to the right is my storage area where I keep extra items waiting to be colored or sold. I use recycled spinach containers as 'baskets' which are see through and just the right size for my works in progress! They stack easily too and are light weight. I also use the lids for trays to stack the parts on while they are being colored.
The final photo is of my shipping station where I pack things up to be shipped. I keep padded envelopes and a supply of boxes on the bottom and some items on the shelf and some on the desk area.
And that concludes the tour of my studio. Thank you for taking time to let me show you around!

Well, you may be asking "But, where is the laser machine?" Thor (my laser machine) is not located in my studio, but at a commercial facility. I will do a post on Thor in an upcoming blog.