Creativity & mindfulness in my garden office

18 Sept

In March of 2022, we turned our bare-to-the-bone garden tool shed into a cute outdoor office. As I continued to split my time between Germany & The Netherlands, it didn’t see much use over the last 2,5 years. This summer, I moved to The Netherlands and found myself craving a creative space as I re-discovered old hobbies. Not wanting to spend money buying new furniture, I decided to re-purpose our existing bits of furniture to create a beautiful, multi-purpose studio in the garden for creativity and mindfulness.

The space

“How big is the space?” you ask. Not big! I’m just about 5ft tall and I can stand inside with my arms stretched wide. It’s definitely challenging to design a small space like this, but not impossible. Over the years, I’ve squeezed in here with a bike, a walking pad, a small bookshelf, and more! I think I am finally down to my last set of furniture.

New additions

As I said at the beginning of this post, my goal was to re-furnish the office without buying anything new. So I moved around some furniture from our home to re-purpose it for my office.

Art on wheels

I wanted dedicated shelving for my art supplies without making the small office look cluttered. I used the IKEA HORANAVAN to tuck my art supplies behind my antique desk. This way, I can still grab them easily when I am in the mood for some quick doodling during my lunch break.

I previously used the HORNAVAN white trolley for my plants in our gap apartment in Düsseldorf. I fixed it with grow lights to grow plants in our window-less apartment.

Plants (or shall we say, Plantjes)

Because of the intense summer, most of my plants are in the house or outdoors in the garden, but I’ll soon be bringing some into the office for fall and winter. I’ve got a great post coming up on plant-shopping without burning a hole through your wallet.

Stationery Stations

It’s corny, I know. But I absolutely LOVE a good stationery haul. Bookstores and stationery shops are two types of stores I cannot resist stepping into even if it is only for a tiny peek. I’ve been upping my correspondence game in the past years and my better half has decided he wants in on it. He won’t write any letters or cards, but he has me primp them for him with a cute seal or a stamp. We sent out 50+ Christmas cards last year and that was his first experience with wax seals. At first, he decided they were an unnecessary use of our precious time. But after he gave out his first batch of cards, he realised that all everyone was squealing about were the wax seals. That evening, I came home to a bewildered man! 😂

Work stationery

Last year, I fell in love with the journals from mishmash. I love my multiple calendars, but I love it even better when I can make personalised, handwritten notes next to my calendar entries. I bought a 3 years worth of stash when they discontinued their old design. Their shipping is steep, so wait for a discount deal or look for a local re-seller.

I bought 2 pairs of blue-light glasses from Barner. I was such a promoter, that I convinced my boss to buy them in my first week of employment! 🙈 I have since then lost my second, beloved pair so I’m going to stick it out with the remaining one.

I buy my pens from the Japanese brand, MUJI. I love a good gel in 0.7. I have never ordered anything from them online, so my current strategy is still to pick up supplies while I’m in Düsseldorf.

I’ve been meaning to pick up my violin practice again now that we have a stable home. I remembered the struggle from not having binder clips to keep my music sheets on the stand. I recently picked up these cute floral clips from Søstrene Grene.

The colourful tape (is it washi?) and the dot stickers are from Temu. I know - we don’t support bad labour practices. But hear me out. I see a lot of the same Temu produce on name-brand stores, so I feel I cannot be faulted for buying from the source.

Letter-writing

I collect post-cards and greeting cards whenever I see a cute one. As I was putting together my new office, I realised I’ve gathered quite a bunch. And yet when I needed a card last week, I ended up buying one because I didn’t know where our stash was… Now it all sits together with the rest of my letter-writing supplies.

My favourite places to buy post cards and greeting cards are Søstrene Grene (surprise, surprise), Dille & Kamille, and Brøese in The Netherlands.

After 50+ Christmas cards, I concluded that wax pellets are the better option over wax candles. So we got a spoon and some bottle of wax to do our wedding invites. We also decided to add gold foil but had no idea how to do it 🙈 We worked out a hack but actually found out the right method from our photographer on our wedding day. Apparently, you just rub the foil over your dried wax seal. All our wax seal supplies - the pellets, the spoon, the gold foil, and the seal stamp are from Søstrene Grene.

I took my husband’s name after the wedding and decided to order an address stamp to save us the trouble of writing our names & address on the thank you cards. The stamp is from this store on Etsy and the stamp pads are from Søstrene Grene. I must admit though that their colour choice is limited and I’ll be purchasing elsewhere next time.

Mindfulness corner

I bought this beautiful meditation mat and pillow combo from Lotus Crafts. Their products are made in Vienna and they ship to all EU countries. My meditation mat is the Zabuton Natur in 4cm. The seat cushion is the Zafu Half-moon SIDDHA in Light Taupe. Sometimes I sneak in here in the evenings after my shower for some quiet time. It helps me calm down before bed and allows me to switch off from the 17 channels playing in my mind’s TV.

What do you think about this update? Looking at old pictures made me miss the minimal look of the office a bit. Not sure if I want to tone down the stuff on my walls yet, but maybe I’ll give this space another update before the end of the year!

Sayalee Shende