Handmade Spaces: Sixth & Elm

Today's handmade space is from Chantelle of Sixth & Elm, creator of wonderful woodburned boxes, frames, wall art and more.  She creates while tucked away in the basement of her Toronto studio where she's free to be as messy as she'd like- let's take a look!



What do you create in this space?
Chaos, mostly, but I do occasionally turn out some pretty nice pieces of hand-burned wooden artwork. Like all makers, I also play with other mediums down here including wire-working, candle-making, paper crafting, polymer clay, screen-printing and anything else I can get my hands on. This is also the place where I stash all the salvaged items I keep because I "may have a use for it someday," though for most of the items, that day has never come and it not likely to anytime soon. There aren't many uses for antique centrifuge parts, for example.

Can you describe what we see in the pics a bit?
The pictures give evidence to the large amount of random materials I like to collect. You have to get pretty creative with storage if you are a pack-rat and can't stomach the word "de-stash" so I have little organized jars of beads and findings, trays for little spools of wire and organizers for more pliers than any human should need in a normal lifespan. I also have my sewing machine, gocco, woodburner, flex-shaft and various other tools I was too weak to resist.

How do you feel when you enter your "handmade space?"
I feel free to be as creative as I want, because the more creative I get, the more mess I make and that becomes a problem when you are crafting in your living room or other shared space. Although I love that chocolate brown paint I have, it doesn't look very good spilled all over the couch cushions. Down here I have complete authority to let my mind lead my hands where they want to go and not have to worry about a hasty clean-up in the middle of a project because I want to use the dining room table for dinner.



It'd be fun to have a space where you can get the walls and floor dirty, don't you think?  Thanks for sharing Chantelle!

To see all of the creations that Chantelle makes here, check out her etsy shop and keep up with her on her Sixth & Elm blog!

If you'd like to share your handmade space with modish readers in the future, I'm accepting new submissions!  Just email me with the subject "handmade spaces" and include some photos and your website address for consideration!  Thank you! 

Comments

[cindy k]

i agree, it would be great to make a mess and not worry about it. i'm sure new ideas come from random scatterings of this and that. chantelle makes lovely things, very unique.

[Diana]

I've been admiring these wooden boxes for so long now. I'm off to check out Chantelle's blog...