New pony shelves!

As you may have noticed, my Julip herd has grown exponentially over the years and as a result, space is now at a premium. I keep most out on open shelves with a handful of the more light sensitive ones locked up in a stable to keep out the sunlight. The only problem is, the shelves - made by my dad when I was about nine - are far too tall, and there was a lot of wasted space going unused.

They weren't quite deep enough to get two rows in so I stuck a big sheet of card in to extend it out by an inch or two which did the job but wasn't ideal.

I'd asked if Dad could put up another level months ago but something always came up at the weekend or he'd just sat down with a cup of tea and couldn't possibly even think about moving, so it never quite managed to get done. I'd have done it myself but he's in charge of all the major DIY in the house. (plus, I didn't want to be the one responsible in case it all came crashing down!)

Today however, we had success!

The ponies were removed...

...new shelves were put up...

...and the residents moved back in!

Beforehand they were all doubled up so I couldn't see the ones in the back row very well but now I can see them all at once which is great. There's not enough space for a second row of big horses but plenty of room for ponies if I had them side on, so my order list can grow guilt-free once more!

There's another shelf on the right for my custom Schleichs - they were getting very cramped and a few had actually got damaged from being displayed too close together so extra space for them was a priority.

Ideally I'd like to use the space for more Julips but as I don't have anywhere else to keep the Schleichs at the moment it's going to have to do for now.

I think the plan is to completely gut and redecorate my room this summer as it has literally been well over a decade since I had anything done to it and its in dire need of better storage and a new carpet that isn't covered in glue, paint and god knows what else!

'The Studio' Past and Present

Seeing as I took photos of it when it was tidy the other day (it's a miracle! :o) I thought I might as well show you lot. :D

As we don't have a spare room with any space for displaying ponies or working on customs and the like (where I'm typing from just now is our spare room which houses the PC and shelf upon shelf of family history research c/o my parents.) I've had to make do with my bedroom which is fine in principle but when you're as chronically untidy and disorganised as I am things get messy pretty quickly. These days I'm able to keep on top of the debris reasonably well but in the past it was horrendous. Luckily for me, I took photos along the way so you can see that I've improved a bit! XD

This is a photo of one of my class diaries from Primary 6, describing my room - as you can see, I wasn't exactly known for my organisation even then, aged 9!

Gotta love my teacher's comment too. XD

I don't have any photos of it at it's worst but here's some taken whilst I was giving it it's most exhaustive blitz ever.

I particularly like the little circle of debris surrounding the bit of floor I'd been sitting on whilst trying to sort stuff out.

I used to make tack on that tiny little space in front of the roombox - yes, even when it looked like this!

How could I cope with it in that state?

Practice. XD

I had drawers full of half finished tack and props alike and this is what I ended up with when I tipped it all out. O_O

Ok, I'm rather ashamed by all that but fear not, it's much better now! See!




Everything's neatly labelled and look, FLOOR! O_O

Granted, the desk can still look cluttered and messy when I'm shooting a photostory or whatever...





...but now it can look nice and shiny afterwards too!


 

As you can see my Schleich/Papo/Safari/MBH live on the top left shelf on a base my mum painted for me when I was a lot younger. It's just MDF but it's so nice I can't bear to let it go.


The Julips have the other two shelves and both stables on the desk and below but even then I'm pushing for space. I'm hoping my dad can put another shelf up above them so I can fit more in - with forty-odd Julips to house I need all the space I can get!

I've tweaked the layout a bit since this was taken - see above and below

The little set of shelves on the left were a fantastic bargain at WH Smiths recently. I was in the process of reorganising my room and spotted them priced at £14.99. Ever the cheapskate I initially passed them over but finally decided that - for the greater good - they'd come in handy and took them to the till...where the woman priced them at £4.99! I don't know if it was a mispriced item or whether they had them on sale but I wasn't going to argue! XD



While I don't have much in the drawers yet other than jumprings, tack hardware and bits and bobs that are too small and foutery to keep anywhere else, they're sure to be useful. The orange box on top of them has all my finished fimo food and materials along with some miniature leaves and moss I thought looked nice inside some fancy jars.
I have a pincushion and threads next to it, a couple of containers of sculpting tools, all my glues and sculpting things on the left (plus a pot with knitting needles and HP themed wands - just in case :P) and, rather randomly some hairspray which I only ever use to seal pastel customs when I've run out of actual sealer, lol. The little hats are from Innocent Smoothies when they do their annual 'Big Knit' thing for charity - people send in handknitted hats and they sell them with their smoothies with some of the money going straight to Age UK. :D I don't often buy them as they're pretty pricey but they're worth it for the hats. :P






Here we have a rather varied selection of things from a photo of my long dead cat Tilly to those of the ever-missed Cruzhorse. :( All but one of the medallions are sculpted by myself - the unpainted one at the bottom is 'Todd' by Clare Stokes of Meadowview Artistry. For a first sculpture he's incredible and I can't wait to paint him once he's told me what colour he wants to be! lol
I also have a printout of EA Equestrian so I can plan photostory setups properly. Sad I know but in my head the place is as real to me as anywhere else so I like to be accurate!

Further along on the other side of my room is the big set of drawers with all my ribbon, mohair and building materials. As you can just make out, my roomboxes are on the right and mini models and Trads below.



 

I have so much in the bottom ones it's unreal...

Last but not least, the fabric stash! (and Giovanni the PS3 - my pride and joy!)



This chest of drawers used to be home to most of my clothes but you know, model stuff comes first so now everything I own is stuffed into a tiny little wardrobe. XD The top drawer is full of backgrounds and bases while the other two are nearly overflowing with fabric.







So there you go, proof that I can in fact be organised!

(just don't remind me of that when my room looks like a bombsite - I'll not be pleased. XP)