try small things

It’s pretty tight quarters here at try small things HQ, but like so many other creatives who have to make do I’ve carved out a couple of spaces (however humble) to blog and shoot and style and bake and all the rest. As it happens, we also use those same spaces to eat and do homework and play LEGO and watch Netflix. Which is really not ideal. I dream of having a dedicated place to work and play, so I was delighted when Quarto Publishing Group USA sent me Sally Coulthard’s Studio: Creative Spaces for Creative People. Taking lessons from the myriad (and often fascinating) studios of crafters, designers, writers, artists and a couple of my favourite bloggers, Sally shares inspiration and insight to help you create your own space with tips on everything from planning your layout and organizing your tools to lighting, seating, wall treatments and display. (Hands up if you’ve never met a pegboard you didn’t love.) Whether you’ve got an entire room or just a corner, you can create a space that works as hard as you.  

“People who use studios know what significant spaces they are. A studio isn’t just a building or a room, it’s an acknowledgement that what you are doing is important enough to deserve its own space. If you try and work in a space that isn’t fit for purpose or doesn’t help your craft, there’s a tacit understanding that what you are doing doesn’t warrant a proper working environment.”

And that studio need not cost you a fortune either. Many of the studios in the book are made both functional and beautiful with repurposed furniture and other finds.

My favourite aesthetic tends towards bright white interiors with pops of colour and plenty of open and closed storage, a place for everything and everything in its place. This bright look is one of five explored in the first section of the book, along with mono, natural, industrial and collected. A second section offers case studies of studios organized according to the work done therein: crafts, fashion and textiles, fine art, etc. And the third and final part offers practical tips to consider when putting in place all of the elements that make up a studio, from worktops to lighting and everything in between.

Here we get a look at the home studio of UK textile designer, Sarah Campbell.

“It’s difficult to know where Sarah Campbell’s studio begins and ends,” Sally writes. “Her workroom might have started life as a separate space at one end of the sitting room, but creativity has a way of creeping out and into every corner. Nowadays, Sarah’s glorious fabrics and paintings cover almost every surface — chairs, sofas, floor space and walls.”

Studio is a beautiful book with all kinds of practical tips and inspiration on every page — perfect for doers and dreamers who long for their own creative spaces or want to make better use of the ones they have.

GIVEAWAY

To enter to win a copy of Studio: Creative Spaces for Creative People, tell me what kind of creative work you do (or would do) in your own studio in the comments below. This entry is mandatory.

For an additional entry, follow try small things on Facebook and share this post, then tell me you did so and your name on Facebook in the comments below.

For a third entry, follow try small things on Instagram, like this picture and tell me your Instagram handle in the comments below.

And feel free to tweet the following once per day and leave the url for your tweet in the comments below (one entry per tweet). Make sure you’re following try small things on Twitter for your entry to count.

#Win Sally Coulthard’s “Studio: Creative Spaces for Creative People” from @trysmallthings http://bit.ly/studiocreativespaces CAN/US 4/12 

The giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents 18+ and ends at 11:59 p.m. EST on April 12, 2017. The potential winner (chosen at random) must respond to prize notification within 48 hours and provide the correct answer to a skill-testing question, otherwise another will be selected.

Update April 14, 2017: Congratulations Wanda B! 

Images 2 to 6 shared here with permission from publisher. Images 2, 3, 4 and 5 by Alun Callender; image 6 (cover) by Pia Jane Bijkerk. Quarto Publishing Group USA sent me a copy of Studio: Creative Spaces for Creative People in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.