Home Tour // My Workspace

Welcome to my little workspace!  I'm on a pretty tight budget so instead of renting a studio space, I just work from home.  My roommate is kind enough to let me take up a wall's worth of space in our dining room to use as my work space.  But lets be real here, I can't even tell you how many hours a day I dream of having a nice big studio space devoted just to my work.  If you are new to the blog, hello, I'm Moorea!  I'm a jewelry designer, small business owner, freelance illustrator and graphic designer and I am a blog designer for Freckled Nest Design.  I do all of my work and store all of my supplies all in this tiny little space.  It's pretty messy most of the time, but I do try to organize it and clear the space every morning before I get to work again.  It helps me feel more refreshed and ready to start the work for the day ahead. :)  Click the links below to explore some of the work I do in my workspace!

MY JEWELRY SHOP  //  MY BLOG DESIGNS  //  MY GRAPHIC DESIGN  //  MY ILLUSTRATIONS

I usually work for about 10 hours a day, breaking up time between all of my jobs throughout the day.  But it is sometimes longer when I am juggling bigger things like filling a wholesale order, planning and prepping for a craft fair, on top of designing blogs, working on freelance work...and so on and so on.  I have a really hard time taking a day off.  Usually I'll just take an afternoon off once, maybe twice a week.  Needless to say, it's not easy folks, being your own boss!  But I am extremely fulfilled with my work.  And the nice thing is that I can travel easily when I need to because I can usually bring my work with me and I don't have a boss dictating my schedule.  I love that element of freedom with my work.  But then again, I'm super jealous when other people get to take a day off when it snows and I have to keep working, haha.

There are times of course where there are lulls and I am not getting as much work as I need or and not selling as much jewelry as I would hope to in a month.  And at those times, I do have moments when I ask myself, "Is this worth it for the stress that I have weighing on my shoulders?  Can I really do this?  Is this sustainable?"  I think it is important to always have these questions running through your head as a freelancer/small biz owner because you have to have the strong will to answer yourself back with, "Yes, it is worth it, I can do it, and I am proud of myself and happy with my career choices," to make it as a one man business.

There are some wonderful benefits to being your own boss and working from home but it is a huge challenge everyday to stay motivated, inspired, and energized.  Thankfully, my brief moments of doubt don't last for long.  I know myself well, and my whole life I have known that I want to be my own boss.  Maybe it's a bossy eldest child thing ;)  The only thing that is truly a challenge for me sometimes is that when you juggle jobs like mine, you don't have a consistent income each month so sometimes my job feels like a gamble.  But because I have to make a serious effort in all that I do to turn a profit and to live off of my work, I am deeply fulfilled in my work because I know it is entirely up to me to succeed.  I only have myself to rely on and it brings me immense joy recognizing when my efforts have been worthwhile and fruitful.  I believe in myself and I can make things work in whatever sized space I'm working in.  :)  But for reals, I hope I can expand, have a larger work space and maybe have an assistant or an employee in the near future too. 

I got my desk and drawers/cabinet from Ikea.  I prefer my workspace to be white and clean so that the clutter of jewelry supplies doesn't feel totally overwhelming as I work, and so that I am not distracted by one color palette while I'm designing.  I usually have a bunch of images that I am inspired by up on my bulletin board and I try to rotate it out each season.  It's time to put up some inspiring images for Spring!  I keep my current blog design client forms on clipboards hanging below the bulletin board so that I have a visual and tactile reminder of where I am progress-wise on their designs.  I keep some finished jewelry pieces and jewelry supplies out and displayed on and around my desk, but for the most part, everything is super duper organized inside my millions of drawers.  Everything has a place.  I use a Macbook pro (laptop) and I have a nice big 27" monitor to plug into my laptop so I can super zoom in on my design projects.  After a years worth of payments on my laptop and monitor, they are finally paid off!  Oh man, what a relief. 

Thanks for taking a little tour of my work space!  I hope you enjoyed it!  I am so honored when I have blog/etsy/twitter followers who tell me they admire me and my work.  And I hope that by seeing how small and basic my workspace is, that you can believe you can start your own dreams, maybe start your own business with very little to work with.  All you need is motivation and belief in yourself, whether you have just a desk or just a computer or nothing at all.  I started my business with maybe $7 investment, I'm not kidding.  But I just slowly built up my jewelry business over time and now I am able to frugally live off of my work.  Hopefully it is only up and up from here!

Tour my Living Room  //  Check Out My Kitchen

all photos by Kristen Marie