Craft Spaces: Jennifer Perkins

Jennifer Perkins of Naughty Secretary Club creates fun jewlery from found objects and is known for her big, bold, colorful designs and personality. Her studio is a fantastic collection of fun items she’s collected from years of thrift store and antique festival adventures. During the last few weeks, Jen has been working on clearing out, cleaning up and reorganizing her studio, and she’s been kind enough to share with us not only her “after” pictures, but also her “before.”
Read all her questions and see more pictures after the jump!

CRAFT: What kinds of crafts do you do?
Jennifer: I do a little bit of everything. My website Naughty Secretary Club is based on my jewelry line, but if you pop over to the Naughty Secretary Club blog you can see that I like all kinds of crafts. I dabble in embroidery, have been known to craft with things like fake hair and dried beads, I recently took a sewing class and am signed up for a crochet class at the end of the month I guess it is my mission to at least try all crafts.
CRAFT: Where do you craft?
Jennifer: Naughty Secretary Club headquarters used to be in the master bedroom of my house. Eventually my husband and I decided we were sick of living in the guest room and I moved to the garage. We never used our 2 car garage so we had a contractor come and close the entire thing in. The only thing I miss is natural light.

CRAFT: How do you keep all your craft supplies organized?
Jennifer: I am a fan of clear plastic storage bins. Sure I love the look of cuter vintage things like cookie tins and have a few myself, but realistically I like to see my supplies. Someone recently told me to keep like things together which seems really obvious but I don’t always do.
CRAFT: How do you motivate yourself to keep your space organized?
Jennifer: My main motivation right now is that my daughter is getting mobile and my craft space is a giant choking hazard. It will be a long time before she can go in that room unsupervised but it would be nice for her to be able to walk in with me every now and again without it putting the fear of Jesus in me.

CRAFT: What’s one organization tip/tool/trick you swear by?
Jennifer: I have no business answering this question.
CRAFT: How do you feel when your space is organized? Unorganized?
Jennifer: I once heard a professional organizer on that TV show ‘Hoarders’ talk about visual noise. I can tolerate a pretty cluttered craft space, but sometimes the visual volume gets a little high and I reach my breaking point and have to clean. I made it my New Years resolution to get my studio organized and cleaned to start 2010 with a clean slate. I’m half way finished and for the first time in almost a year was able to actually craft on a clean work table.
I have to say that sometimes when my craft space is too clean I feel just as stifled as when it is really messy. If I am going to make something I like to spread out all the supplies and options involved so that I can see everything. Nothing wrong with that process if only I would put it all away when I was done.

CRAFT: Describe your dream workspace.
Jennifer: I honestly have my dream workspace, I’m pretty dang lucky. Sometimes I wish there was a door and a window, but sunlight is overrated.
CRAFT: How does the way your craft space is organized affect your crafting/creativity?
Jennifer: My creativity is effected every time I walk in my studio. I keep things in such disarray that I might look over and see one thing on the floor, another thing on a table and a third thing on a shelf that I would have never otherwise thought to put together if I was not so unorganized and messy. Sure that is a rationalization, but there is some truth to it too.