I hope your week is off to a great start. We had the most fabulous sunny day yesterday but I missed most of it because I was catching up on a little housework & laundry. I work weekends so after I see Hubby off to work on a Monday morning, I try to catch up as much as I can from my "weekend off" :)
I thought today we'd have a wee peek behind the scenes of where this blog gets written :)
I don't have a designated home office as such, instead I have a corner of our sitting (family) room :) Our little home isn't grand but I like to think it's homely, full of happiness and that anyone who visits (I hope) feels a hug as they walk through the front door :)
You can already see the entrance to our home, and indeed the small downstairs hallway, elsewhere on this blog, but leading off from the hall is our sitting room and directly facing you as you walk into the living room is Rosie's Cottage Central :)
I spoke very briefly about this area before honeys, do you remember? It was when we'd originally bought the wonderful shelf "cubbies" you can see above the desk.
As you can see, my desk is tiny but with the addition of a handy matching storage unit which sits just to the side, it's more than enough room to write, plan & edit blog posts.
As you can see there is a small cd case to the left of the storage unit too. This is home to one of the other great constants in my life... music :) The CDs stored here are all classical music, our other CDs are stored upstairs although they do visit downstairs regularly, depending on what I feel like listening to while I work.
The storage unit by my desk is used to organize everything I like to keep nearby. The top of this unit is dominated by our Kodak printer. Whoever decided to combine the functions of a printer, scanner and copier into a single unit was a genius and I am ridiculously grateful :) Just the saving on desktop space alone makes it completely wonderful, but combining these functions into the one location also made it incredibly user friendly too.
The top of our printer is also home to a friendly, beautiful Texan elephant :) Wow! There's something you don't get to say often honeys :) Isn't he fabulous? He was a gift from my beloved best friend Miriam, brought back from her recent trip to Texas, and I just adore him! Thank you Meme darling <hugs> love you xx
Next on this storage unit, on the shelf directly below the printer, is our laminator. Can I just say how fabulously useful a laminator is? I laminate recipes (take that spills in the kitchen!) I use it to make labels for our baskets & organizers,, I've used it to make our Menu Board and To Do This Week board, it's wonderful! They're so inexpensive now too, the one we have can be found in Asda (Walmart)for £10 and the laminating pouches can be found in pound stores & Home Bargains too.
Behind the laminator you can just see a tiny, adorable green frog on a rock :) He is actually a small light. The glass dome he's staring at lights up at the flick of a small switch. He looks like such a happy wee frog and he makes me smile :)
On the other side of the unit you can see a pink crystal covered combination calculator & mousepad. No one uses mice anymore but this calculator was part of a set along with a crystal computer mouse and was a gift from my dear Hubby a long time ago. A girl is never too old for anything that's pink or sparkles :)
Between the friendly frog and the pink sparkly calculator stands a gorgeous tin with a raised, embossed pattern in the style of the famous Glasgow designer/architect/artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The rose, which is central to the design on the tin, is commonly referred to as a "Glasgow Rose" because it is such a feature in Mackintosh's famous designs. I love this tin. It makes me smile every time I look at it, not just because it's so beautiful, but because it was a gift (containing yummy shortbread) from our lovely next door neighbours.
The next shelf is home to a large seagrass basket. This basket is home to laminating pouches, folders, extra notebooks (I do use a lot of notebooks) and various other useful items such as coloured card for crafting.
Lastly on this useful, multi functional storage unit, there is a tiny cupboard at the bottom. This has two lidded A4 storage boxes with additional crafting supplies.
This takes us across to the desk itself. This is, of course, home to my laptop. A 1TB hard drive (a gift from Hubby - thank you sweetheart xx) and various small storage boxes which organize my desk top.
Behind my laptop you can see the top of a small storage tower made by combining two of Ikea's Variera shelf inserts, bolted together . There are no words for how useful these small metal shelves are. We have them in our kitchen cabinets too and they really do help make the most of small spaces by making use of vertical space.
The top level of the Ikea shelves is home to a small yellow lidded box which is home to my camera, without which this blog would simply not be possible. My camera is tiny, which means it fits easily into my handbag, so is always ready to snap interesting moments like roses in bloom or Jade enjoying a happy walk :)
Alongside the home of my camera is a blue plastic "snap" closing storage box which holds stickers and labels. Sitting on top of that is my "emergency bag." I have another of these bags upstairs by my bed and yet another in my handbag. It is, literally, something I go nowhere without and something I need to have close by at all times. This bag contains my asthma inhalers, a small spacer and a small mask which fits over the end of the spacer. An insurance against my losing consciousness again (heaven forbid) as has happened in the past during an asthma attack.
Above my desk is the beyond useful shelf/cubby unit :)
As you can see honeys, I've used the little cubbies to store tiny treasures. Things that make me happy, make me smile :)
The first cubby however holds some books on blogging (I'm still new at this you know dear ones, so much to learn) and notebooks. There are also two furbaby books, ideal for when I need a smile :) You can see details of these books here.
The next two cubbies hold various items, some of which you might have seen before here and some you might not. They are all here, as I said simply because they make me happy :)
The beautifully delicate bridal couple and the stunning little glittery sand hourglass were both gifts from dear friends (thank you Francine & John xx) and I can't ever see them without thinking of my friends and smiling :)
Also in this little cubby are three tiny plastic crates which corral useful items such as flash drive pens and USB hubs. In front you can see the most adorable, and tiniest, gold snow globe with a teeny weeny golden reindeer inside :) You might have noticed my long held love of all things reindeer dotted around this blog honeys :)
Standing next to the little golden reindeer, on his own tiny cloud, is a tenderheart carebear :) Does anyone else remember Care Bears from times gone by? This wee chap was a gift from Hubby and the heart on his chest lights up :) Next to him, in the next cubby along, is a tiny red gingham gift bag containing an adorable angel, another gift from Hubby (as is the minion nearby :) I have a small collection of angels doted around our home, they comfort me.
Did you notice the golden tree behind the little minion? A dear friend at work was so horrified to discover that we never have a tree at Christmas that she bought this beautiful little tree for me, along with an adorable musical Santa :) (Thank you Sara xx) I love them so much they're there all year long :) The tiny Swedish flag is a memory from a recent trip to Ikea :)
Of course it's my desk (Hubby's is upstairs in his "man cave") so it wouldn't be complete without a photograph of our furbaby Jade :) The frame Jade's photo is in is from my personal happy place, Ikea and is actually a very clever design. It's "double sided." Essentially honeys it holds two photos and is reversible. If you turn it around there is another photo (of Jade naturally!) on the other side :)
There isn't a photo of the last cubby of this shelf unit because it's very personal, I do hope you don't mind dear ones? The last cubby holds a pretty frame holding a photograph of my beloved Grandma The frame is also home to several poppies, one for each year since she passed. Every year I bought Gramma a poppy, in memory of her Father and I see no reason to stop until I'm with her again x
Sitting by Gramma's photograph are two beautiful white glass candles. These candles were part of a set which was a gift from another dear friend at work, they're jasmine scented and are just fabulous. They're so pretty I thought they would be perfect sitting by Gramma, I knew she'd love them too :) Thank you Jenny angel, sending you mountains of hugs honey xx
Our last area then is one I covered before on my blog and makes marvellous use of space no longer used for its intended purpose!
Since the decline in popularity of desktop computers in favour of first laptops and then tablets and smartphones, desks have still been manufactured with a slide out shelf intended to be home to a keyboard. In a blog post, which you can read here honeys, I showed how I had used this space to store all of my stationery accessories.
This worked so well I'm still using this system as you can see......
Everything I need is within a hands grasp and is immediately assessable. There are highlighters, gel pens and rainbow coloured pens, replacement staples for my staplers and mini stampers and yes I do have one that stamps a tiny rose :) I even have cute pens that look like lipsticks :)
The organizer I used is again from Ikea. It's called a STÖDJA cutlery tray and, at only £1.50 was such a bargain for something that has proved so incredibly useful in organizing my far-too-many pens, pencils and smaller crafting supplies.
Underneath the slide out (former) keyboard shelf on my tiny desk is a shelf. I've used this to store a couple of white magazine files, again from Ikea, which I've used to store larger notebooks, magazines and paper for the printer.
Well, that's it honeys. If you blog too, where do you write your posts? Do you have a designated "work space." I find it easier to concentrate when I go to my little work area, its as if there is a small part of my brain that says "ok Rosie, work now." Do please share your thoughts in the comments section below, or just say hello, I'd love that too :)
I hope you're having a fabulous week so far dear ones, and that you're seeing this gorgeous sunshine wherever you are :) Till next time, hugs always xx
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