I am very blessed to have a large media room in our home that I use for my studio, So how about a studio tour? 

Welcome to the studio! When you walk through the door of my “Studio” I have to say it always a work in progress – as I accumulate pieces and move them around to make them work for me. Over the years many of the pieces have changed colors slowly getting lighter as my tastes and the room changed.

When I do live Mixed Media Mondays episodes on Facebook this is the wall you usually see me standing in front of. It’s fun and colorful and makes for a fun backdrop. 

I made the blue shelves for my room because I couldn’t find any the right size to fit my mists.

Before I broke my foot I was in the middle of reorganizing and repainting. A lot has happen since then that I have to catch up on so I probably won’t be able to finish any time soon, I figured I might as well post the pictures I do have. There is still a lot of painting to be done but it’s getting there!

The cabinets will be white with different shades of blue drawers and cabinets. anything black or brown will be painted white or blue and antiqued white.

I have altered several Alex drawers from IKEA, stacked them and still need to anchor them to each other – I wanted to use them like this for a while to make sure I would like it and I love it. The shallow drawers make it really easy to see what is in them and it was really easy to paint them with chalk paint. I had started painting them – they were stenciled at one time but now moving to a more uniform look so they need another coat.

The Raskog cart is from Ikea and has mixed media odds and ends – drywall tape, tissue paper, more paint, textural pastes, etc. – mixed media mayhem! I have two of these full of goodies!

In this closet, I keep all canvases and a lightbox on that stand. That wall on the right did end up getting painted a flat deep dark blue with a hint of green which seems odd but works and is so pretty on that transition wall. It leads to the old studio. I had the old studio and when out oldest son moved out he cut an arched doorway to adjoin the two rooms and make one very large studio out of the two rooms. You can kinda see the new dark color on the trim as we had just started painting the trim below…

I work from counter height cabinets put together and a very large tabletop placed on top of them. On top of that, I placed a piece of hardboard so I could have a large tabletop without any lines that I could do very large art projects on.

Across the way, we continue the studio tour in the old studio where I do all shipping, cutting, prep work for the shop, and storage. But it has no windows or natural light so I do all videos, pictures, and artwork in the newer part of the studio where the light is gorgeous.

The faires – where it all began. The old studio.

A closer look at my cubbies (Ikea Expedit), and desk. Cubbies on the wall house things separated by what they are – for example, tools, chipboard, alphas, acrylic, electronic cutting cartridges, and dies. The ones closer to my desk hold things I use all the time and are easily in reach  – to my left are my mixed media supplies by collection, alphas separated by color, paints, watercolor paper, and my art journals.

I find the dishwashing bins fit perfectly in those cubbies and are a lot less expensive and more sturdy than some of those flimsy bins. Of course, had I known I would have ended up in a room with no natural light I would have bought white but maybe eventually I’ll paint it or something.

I redid these cubes with tin! So fun! The drawers house all things separated by item- like stamps, alphas, flowers, chipboard, tools for bookbinding, acrylic. I did get those tall bins to house my paper stacks vertically and write the titles on the spines so see what I need.

I hope you enjoyed my studio tour. Let me know if you have any questions!

Q and A
crazyridiculousmakeup:
Where did you get your work table? I am in need of a work table. Mine is too small. Thanks

ritabarakatart:
@crazyridiculousmakeup ahh!! Good question! It is actually a combination of several things- the tabletop I got on clearance from Nebraska furniture mart- it’s huge and heavy- and has several leaves which left me with annoying lines on the tabletop. To solve that I went to the hardware store and got a large piece of hardboard, very thin, easy to cut to the right size. Painted and mount it on top and solved my pesky indention problem. Both are mounted on top of counter height cabinets (meant for kitchens) which works for great storage. (You can get these unfinished for less expensive than finished. And sometimes on clearance which is how I started my collection. )

crazyridiculousmakeup
@ritabarakatart thank you! I need to redo my space. It is a bit hodgepodge. Plus I have to work with my available space. The middle of the room would be the best work table and shelves etc around the room. I love all the colors in your studio.

ritabarakatart:
@crazyridiculousmakeup thank you!

• thecreativelifestudiosI’m thinking I should do my paint wall like yours…where it’s organized by color and not by product and then color.
• ritabarakatart@thecreativelifestudios it used to be organized by the manufacturer but it would drive me crazy when I would be in the middle of a project and run out of a color and Have to search for the color in a different manu or product. For me, it’s much easier to sort by color! Then I can easily pull products by color for a project!