Today in Cloud Cuckooland Studio

It takes just one request to keep posting about this studio clear-up to encourage me to do so. If you're going through a studio reorganisation, or have vaguely thought you might do so one day, be aware that amid what seems like total chaos, many small triumphs are lurking, waiting to delight you.

Yesterday's Great Paper Pullout precipitated a bit of a rethink on paper storage (and I recycled some offcuts found on those shelves). What got put back was mostly the large sheets, and the large pads.

It's the middle two shelves that have been reorganised - they used to look as shaggy as the one below them (the tools above will probably stay there for a while). What's made for more space is moving the A4 sized pads to the shelves above the worktop -

By chance (or divine intervention?) I'd found some bookends in a charity shop the day before - very useful to hold the pads in place. This accessible paper storage is a major "small delight" ... but really, will I ever use all that tracing paper, cartridge paper, watercolour paper, layout paper? hmm, maybe - when you make experimental books, you do tend to use a lot of paper of all sorts ...

The smaller pads went up in the middle cupboard - there was just room in front of the unused sketchbooks. (Again - so many of those! In Round 2 of this sort-out, their number will be decimated.)

Also in the middle cupboard, above the box of acid dyes (will I really be using those again?) are folders of papers - notes from various courses, and leftovers from various manifestations of Travel Lines books ... a project that may be resurrected, you never know. The top shelf is untouched: let sleeping dogs lie ... till Round 2.

Another small delight, though it may not look it to anyone else, is this cupboard (oo, kinda grim to show the insides of cupboards!)  -

Note the empty space, once filled by that bag of fabric for Travel Lines bag handles which is now on the top shelf - a space destined to be filled with lining fabrics for the bags. And note the labels, so useful for remembering what's at the back of the shelf - though these are post-it notes and likely to fall off; any ideas for better labelling, anyone?

A better use for post-it labels is in the sorting area: one reads "what to do with these?". Plastic boxes are for things that have found a home (though one is "pens to sort"), cardboard boxes are for items on the move -

I'm delighted to have some compartmentalisation going on here. And to still have space on the shelves.

Finally, the table under the window, where I love to sit in winter (though with tree-cutting going on outside, the view will be rather different from now on). After clearing it yesterday, I found great delight in being able to open and clean the window. Some items have migrated back onto the table already, though if this is the most crowded it gets, I'll be very happy -

To keep the table from being overcrowded, I cleared a drawer to hold the sewing and glueing and note-writing things that were in frequent use, grouped into smaller boxes to be lifted out and used for the project underway. Meanwhile, the table is a sorting space.

A few things under the table need dealing with, too. Photos are relentless ... they show you things that you'd rather ignore. Also - they show progress!