The not so Nice and Neat part

For the ABEurope Group I taped 2 movies about different techniques I like to use. One of the members commented on my box of water soluble crayons: neatly organised and not one of them was broken. She uploaded a picture of her broken crayons to the group's website. To give her, and the other member who watched the video, a real and honest view of my workspace, I took this picture. My box of crayons was definitly Nice and Neat, but that is just to counter balance the Not So Nice And Neat Worktable. LOL!

The video is zoomed in on a part of my table which I clear before taping. To make a good impression. Well, so far for this good impression. This is the real deal, girl!

Saying good bye

Can't believe that I just typed this title... But yes, I think that this is a bit special. After more than 15 years or so, I have replaced my old Wacom tablet for a super new one. What so special is about that? It is the only piece of hardware that survived so many years in a row!
It even travelled with me to all kinds of exhibitions when I still had my own company and sold textile design software.
And I should have been able to keep on using it, was it not for Wacom who thought there was no need for a new driver for this old tablet, they just assumed that this tablet would have died in 15 years. So no reason to update the drivers for Vista and now it does not support pressure sensitivity under Vista... It still works though as a normal pen!

So after using the old tablet this past year, I decided that it was time to save up and buy the new version of the tablet.
Instead of choosing the A4 oversized, I went for the normal A4 size - a wise decision since the tablet takes over even more space (in width) than the old one.
Remains the question - what do I do with this old tablet?

So now I have these stylish black items on my computer desk. Well, in reality, only the right half of the desk is 'stylish' - the left side is filled with CD's, DVD's, pens and pencils, memorycards, notes, magazines, books, papers and more notes...
No clean workspace for me, I guess!

Favorite item on worktable

We had a question for the members of the ABEurope group (Yahoo group for Altered Books in Europe): what is your favorite item on your worktable?

Well, this is my favorite: a wirebasket with several jam jars filled with water!
My workroom is somewhat away from the nearest watertap. In the beginning I was running around with jars filled with water, to empty them or to change the water. I tried also larger jars as well. But as soon as the water is dirty, then even a large jar won't help!

I found this wirebasket in a store and thought that it would be perfect to hold several jars and filled with water. In the openings I can even tuck in some brushes that need more than a simple rinse in the waterjar.

One jar is dedicated to the glue brush. This is always the same jar in the same place. Now I don't have to think so much when I am using expensive watercolour brushes - which I definetly don't like to rinse in water mixed with glue!

Another bonus is that the cat can't throw the water jars over. I always had to clean up after working, afraid that Coco, who of course prefers my table above the comfortable chair in the same room, would throw a jar over my work.
Also, the jars are small enough so that she can't drink from them - she seems to like 'dirty' water more than a fresh bowl... Cats...