A Studio Upgrade For My Favorite Price: Free!

Well, Dan and I are over the moon with delight, we have a new desk for the computer we use in the studio!  I still create my art on an old wooden art table, but we need our technology too.  This might not seem like a big deal, but with the computer and the giant printers that we use, you can't just use any old computer desk, plus the space is tight, since the production studio is a converted bedroom, so we've been looking high and low for something that is just the right fit and in our price range.  We've been using one of those big white fold-able tables that for a couple of years now, because it was all the we had that would work, but it wasn't very nice, and the height was a little "off."  We both got neck strain sitting there. 

So one day recently when we were at my moms house, Dan noticed a desk in her basement that wasn't being used that looked like it could work with some alterations.  They've been trying to get rid of some extra furniture that's taking up space so they really wanted us to have it.  Her husband is an engineer and he thought he could customise it to fit our printers on it.  He found two shelves that had been part of an aquarium stand that were exactly the right size for the printers to sit on and mounted them on the desk!  I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture to show you how the previous set up looked, but you'll just have to take my word for it, pretty sad.

This shot only shows one printer, but the other will go on the shelf on the other side.  Sometimes it's the little things in life that just make things easier this desk actually takes up less room but everything fits on it better than our previous makeshift set up!

When the printer is open, it used to block the screen making it a very awkward workspace, but now it's just perfect!  He did a great job, it looks like it came from the factory with those extra shelves, doesn't it?!  

Anyway, this is where we sit and print out sheets of art to press onto our coffee mugs, garden flags, oval tiles, and all the goodies that we make in the studio.  We use Photoshop Elements to work on the images, (as you can see in the picture above) we make them the right size and shape for each product and them lay them out on a sheet to print.  Then we use that big printer to print the images using a special dye and Dan uses our big heat presses to transfer the art onto each item.  Life in the studio just got a little bit nicer with our fancy new (to us) re-purposed desk!  Thanks Mom and Kelly!

Blessings,