designing creative spaces

creating art has always been important to me, ever since I spent my pre-school days drawing princesses and wrote my first complete two-page story in second grade on my dad's old Dell desktop computer in his home office.

but it wasn't until high school when I began taking the space in which I created my art seriously. I hung up superhero posters bought off the internet on the walls around my desk space (a tiny fold up desk I got from Target for under $50) to inspire myself as I spent my free evenings after school and extracurriculars drawing my own made-up comics.

in my college dorm room, I pinned chemistry, physics, and philosophy notes to the wall as I studied those subjects, surrounding myself with nomenclature, equations, mechanisms, and quotes that acted as easy reference for me as I completed my homework. for me, studying was always a creative process -- it's the art of honing the tools you'll need to design solutions to the problems you encounter theoretically and experimentally.

when I moved into my first apartment my junior year, it came time to work on my creative writing honors thesis, so I taped poetry on my walls and kept books stacked neatly on my desk that inspired me.

now that I've moved out of all those places: my childhood bedroom, my first (and second dorm room), and the college apartment, I spent the majority of my free time early summer Marie Kondo-ing my life to make space for a fresh start in my post-college bedroom. with the help of lots of target and tj maxx gift cards, I set to work designing the new spaces where I would spend my creative energy.

space 1: the makeup corner

one of my most regular artistic projects would be my daily makeup routine. makeup really is an art that takes practice and getting to know how to best utilize your canvas. it took me years to perfect my liquid eyeliner wing, which I realized while going through old photos of me from high school and seeing how far I'd come in doing makeup since then. people also have their own styles when it comes to makeup, which became obvious to me when I started doing other people's makeup and hearing their comments on how similar it would turn out looking to mine. of course, the way you do it can vary from day to day, and it's always evolving.

after spending the last few years of my life cluttering my bathroom countertop with makeup products and shoving the rest of them into drawers, I set to work disposing of anything that I didn't use or had kept long after the expiration date. I knew I wanted to create a space where I could do my makeup under natural light (I've spent way too many years doing it in dimly lit bathrooms only to go out into the world and see how cakey and discolored it turned out) and come up with a sustainable form of organizing the products I was left with so I could easily access them all and add some variety into my routine.

I initially started out with the vision for my makeup corner like so: a giant leaning wall mirror and a small shelf area where I could organize my makeup. turns out, giant leaning wall mirrors are expensive and after going to at least five furniture stores and not seeing the kind of shelf I was imagining, I settled for this large mirror I found from Ikea and paired it with a rolling toiletry cart from target. the cart came with the white plastic bin, but the wooden organizing boxes I bought separately from target as well.

with the plastic bin, I was able to easily organize all my eyeshadow palettes standing up so I wouldn't have to dig through stacks of them in a drawer anymore to access the one I wanted to use for the day. on the top shelf of the cart, I put my tall daily use products (daily makeup brush cleanser, deodorant, setting spray, BB cream, and foundation) in the long box, filling the rest of the space with miscellaneous commonly used items (primers, pencil liner, and eyelash curler). the small box was used to stack my false eyelash collection in a way where I could see which pair it was, and I dedicated the remaining space to eyelash glue and liquid liner to keep it consistent. there was another box which I removed so I could put my mason jar of makeup brushes on the tray as well. I got the idea from a friend who kept her brushes stored upright in a jar filled with rocks, and it's honestly my favorite way to store and display them now. finally, in the bottom tier of the cart, I used a fold out box with compartments in the top part for mascaras, bronzer, blushes, and highlighters, a hidden compartment for my lipsticks (since I don't use them much anymore but have a ton), and little compartments at the end for my eyebrow stuff and hair ties.

I'm really happy with how this corner turned out and I honestly look forward to drawing the curtains and sitting on the ground every morning to do my makeup. my mom added a little clip-on light for me so that I would have a light source on cloudy days or dark mornings too.

space 2: the desk area

so this isn't the most complete photo of my desk, but I really just wanted to highlight the decorative display I created on the wall above it. since the second creative thing I do the most is photography, I really wanted to print out some of my favorite photos I've taken and put them up. as convenient as digital photography is, there's nothing like seeing your work in print. fortunately, I've taken a lot of photos over the past two years that I'm proud of and that mean something to me. looking at each of these, I'm reminded of where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing there at the moment I snapped the photo.

I also put up my "raconteur" piece that I made back in college when I first got accepted into UT's creative writing program. I keep it up as a reminder to always be a storyteller -- whether its through words or the photos I create.

on the desk space itself, I decided to try and keep it simple this time. I wanted to buy as big of a desk as I could get because I'm someone who likes to spread things out and look at the big picture. also, huge desk calendars have gotten me through the better part of my long academic life, and I wasn't about to stop using them now. since the desk I got had this really bumpy wood grain, the desk calendar also served as a flat surface I could write or sketch on easily. I bought it with the pink lamp from tj maxx for a great price.

on the left of my desk, I put my makeup mirror. this is where the rolling makeup cart comes in handy -- I can really easily roll my products over from the corner to my desk in case there's anything that would be better done in the small mirror (i.e., applying falsies). on the right side of my desk is a jewelry box my dad got me for Christmas a few years back. I had to go through all my jewelry too and figure out what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of. you accumulate a lot of play jewelry in 22 years of life! but I've narrowed down my collection to pieces that will last and are more suited for a young adult than were my plastic pearls and fifth grade string bracelets.

anyway, I just wanted to share a little bit of the work I've been doing in my new place to make it somewhere that feels like home, somewhere where I can both be inspired and relax after a long day.