Crafting Tornado: My Desk

Two weeks ago, this was my desk.

Let me start by defending myself because I know this photo is jarring. My home life encouraged creativity and activity, not organization to hide our projects.  I grew up in a cluttered house with a cluttered bedroom. Big family, busy people with no patience. We all preferred making new stuff to cleaning up the old stuff.

This was my desk in my craft room. We originally planned on using the room as a nursery when we moved into the house ten years ago, but biology dashed those plans and it became a home office. Of course, we're such social creatures that we moved the computer out of the office so we could be within ten feet of each other while we work at home.  Since this craft room is the only room that we can lock off from our rascally dogs during the day, it's become a catch-all room for things they can't have.

My college friend in Fayetteville, Arkansas, helped me organize my desk via Facebook.  You can see the desk has random papers, random costume bits, puppet foam, broken pasties, boxed supplies, teaching gloves, stray merch, my camera, and some things that could just be tossed.  Oh, and a giant handbag because that makes a lot of sense.

Here's my desk now.

Here is my desk two weeks later. All that shit from the photo above has been sorted, put away, or pitched. You can see the silamide I use all the time for hand sewing on the far left. I have a lovely MLP-themed piece of artwork gifted to me by June Gloom on the wall, along with original artwork by tattoo artist and burlesque dancer Doris Night of Hot Springs. My friend Sebastian did an awesome rendering of a statue I described one night in play rehearsal, and I have a sketch by T.J. Rappel from Dr. Sketchy's at Burlesque Hall of Fame a few years ago. Below all the artwork is my feather color card.

On the shelves above the desk are my Barbie from Richard Simmons and a Cruella doll I got from Lili vonSchtupp.  The second shelf holds labeled containers of lingerie supplies, fasteners, jewelry supplies, rhinestones, and bias tape & buttons. The bottom shelf holds my video camera and bra supplies.

The desk has become a cutting table so we can start to repurpose our ironing board, using it for its original intended purpose. The flower girl basket from the rewedding holds my shears, pattern weights, french curves, and rotary cutters. The cutting rulers are behind the serger. The serger rests on the corner of the desk. My serger instructions are on the desk as I learn to use the machine, then I'll rehome them.

I need to go through every shelf in my house and give it the same treatment as my desk.  The trick will be for me to keep the desk clean.