In The Studio
This post “Make An Entrance” is an excerpt from an article originally published in the October 2026 issue of Reclaimed Living magazine.
My creativity has lived all over my house for most of my life. On the dining room table. Across the kitchen counter. Out in the driveway. Sometimes in the backyard.
For years, I never really questioned it. Creating was something I did for myself, for our home, or occasionally for a vintage booth. I certainly never imagined that one day I would be sharing projects with thousands of people online. Then social media came along, and somewhere in the middle of sharing what I was making, it felt as thought a gigantic creative force had been unleashed inside me.
Suddenly there were more ideas. More supplies. More projects waiting to happen. And eventually, creativity needed a home of its own.
Today my studio occupies a 14-by-20-foot loft in our home, a room that might otherwise have become an extra television room or game room. My family probably got the short end of that particular bargain, but they have been wonderfully supportive.
The room is full. Very full. But when I walk into it, I don’t see clutter first.
I see possibility.
A ROOM FILLED WITH STORY
Almost everything in the studio has lived another life before arriving here. There is an old postal mailbox that belongs to my father-in-law during his years as a postal worker. Today its compartments hold colored papers, but for me it is more than clever storage. It is a family heirloom, something from our past doing useful work in our present.
Behind me when I film are a few books that belonged to my grandfather’s sister who died from polio as a child. I never knew her. I never saw the life those books belonged to. Yet somethow they now sit in a room where I am making things, teaching things and creating a life she could never have imagined.
That kind of connection matters to me.
So much of this room works that way. Old library shelving. A general store counter. Pine furniture. Mustard-painted lockers. Green chests found on Facebook Marketplace. Old store fixtures. Tiny drawers. Bowls and trays filled with things someone else might have thrown away.
I love vintage workhorse pieces, the things that were build to be useful before anyone thought about whether they were beautiful. And now they are both.
Perhaps that is part of why this room feels so much like mine.
Read the rest of the In the Studio article in the October 2026 issue of Reclaimed Living.
You can also click to subscribe to read future issues.
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