Sounds crazy, but inspiration from other artists have brought me to a place where I completely revamped my art space AND completely re-thought how I organize all my art materials. Read on for links to artists, and sources for all the materials I used to recreate a whole new aesthetic for myself.

The source of my recent inspiration and outlook on my workspace AND journaling materials is 100% attributed to specific artists I started following on instagram.

I wish these artists had websites and blogged about their work (see my earlier post on my thoughts on this here) but, no, they are only on instagram and some on youtube from what I can tell.

In any case, these artists are worth checking out and here are links to where they are on instagram:
@paperflowerjournal, @shacee, @coracreacrafts, @skybambi and @scribee.

BTW, even if you do not have an account on instagram I believe you can still view their work.

So these artists have a totally different aesthetic to how I normally work. I like bold and colorful and whimsical. Their work is calm, and white and classic.

But I have been totally converted (for now at least) to this new aesthetic and all that it involves.

This aesthetic lead me to completely change my art room, and make it cleaner, simpler and not so cluttered.

On the right is a view of my new workspace - still to be completed, but much closer to the cleaner look I am going for. I wish I had before pictures to show you the change but believe me it is a major change.

In addition to a cleaner calmer work space, part of these artists’ aesthetics is the way they store their journaling, or art materials and I wonder why I never thought of this before and then I became completely enthralled in this idea of making the storage of my materials as beautiful as the materials themselves.

And why does this matter. Well, there is something about having a great space to work in and great art materials for sure. But there is also great value in having those art materials stored in beautiful storage isn’t there?. In fact, it’s all part of the process. If the pieces are special, why shouldn’t the storage be?

I totally went for it. I started purchasing not the regular file folders and metal organizers to store my art fodder, but instead, gave them the credit they deserved and started purchasing beautiful, non-traditional organizers to store them in like the photos on the right.

Why not store your smaller stickers and labels in these beautiful leather and leather-like cases?

I purchased the two leather cases shown on the right here:
Envelope Leather card holder Large : Shein - $4.00
Smaller envelope: Hide and Drink on Amazon - 24.00

Once I started thinking about non-traditional storage ideas things opened up.

I had a tin from my mom stashed away for the longest of times. I realized it would be great to store my dried flowers.

That tin gave me other ideas as I googled away for vintage tins. What popped up was this beautiful “cigarette case” in the shiniest, embossed silver.

I found this one on Amazon here - for 10.00$

There is absolutely something about having your favored art bits and bobs stored in these beautiful containers that makes the whole process all that much more satisfying. I now love working in this way.

But you know me, I could not just stop there. I started playing with the idea of creating customized storage that fit my needs exactly.

On the right are some of the folders.

In the smaller folio shown on the left of the photo I added vellum “flip” pages to this “matchbook style” folder. In here I store different pieces of text, either cut from books, or typed up on my computer.

I almost always use text in my artwork and it’s nice to have precut pieces and expressions that suit the work in a nice little folder

The other larger folio, I use to store stickers and labels.

The photo below that one shows the inside and you can see how I created “rows” to create space for multiple stickers.

There are two main facets of fun to creating these types of paper based folios. The first is to be able to customize them to meet your needs, and the second is decorating them.

All of these samples were created using plain cardstock paper and then I embellished them with washi tape and floral stickers.

If you have specific requirements on the items you want to store in these types of folios let me know. I would be happy to create a customized version just for you.

The other folder I made for myself is this vellum folder with pockets.

And I have to say, the photograph really does not do this folder justice. Maybe the camera has problems capturing the translucence of the vellum- I’m not sure, but this is one of my favorite folios of all the ones I have created.

I hope you can use your imagination here. If you are interested in a piece like this let me know - I would be happy to make one for you.

Finally I wanted to share with you some of the online stores I have been frequenting of late - these are my new favorites:

• sumthingsofmine

• yoseka stationary

• pinky elephant

• little happy things

All of this to say it is always good to explore new artists that take us beyond what we are used to. In art we all know that the possibilities are endless and I am always open to learning new ideas that I can incorporate into my own work.

I hope that you visit all the links I have provided. I love blog posts with tons of links don’t you.?

I have other things to share with you including journal flip throughs and videos on how I create a single journal page.

Thank you for all your emails and comments. I appreciate it more than you know.