Sometimes you just get bitten by the ‘change bug’.

Or is that the ‘sprucing things up’ bug?

Anyhoo, I got bitten and did a little bit of that this weekend. Nothing like taking time out at the busiest time of year to organise and decorate, right? 😉

Nick has been doing a lot more jewellery work lately (if you’ve bought a ring in the last few months, chances are he’s done a lot of the finishing work on it – filing, sanding and polishing!), and so he needed a bright lamp to put on his desk. He found this awesome industrial-style lamp at Bunnings… but when he got it home he realised it was a bit too big and unwieldy for his little desk.

I had a much smaller desk lamp in my studio already – so we decided to do a switcheroo, as my studio bench is way bigger than his desk.

Me on a typical non-glamorous summer workday.

I have to admit, I’m pretty happy about it, as this lamp is WAY cooler than my old one!

Making space for it meant I had to re-arrange a few things on my bench… which got me a bit inspired to add a few new touches around the place.

After reading this article on desk plants in the workspace, I decided to get some more plants for our little 2-room home + studio. We’ve always had a number of indoor plants, but I wanted to add more. I’ve always loved the look of indoor spaces with copious plants spread around.

I decided to get some maidenhair ferns to add to the top of my secretary desk (where my computer lives) – and bought a few pretty pots to put them in, too.

Because we live in a hot climate, and I am not the most green-thumbed of people (I have managed to even kill air plants – I mean, who does that?), I was worried that they would dry out. So, I bought some big pot trays and put them on the top of my desk – where they are mostly hidden by the lip built around the top.

I can then make sure there is plenty of water in the tray to keep the plants happy.

Second, I decided I wanted a bit of colour – so I bought some potted colour for the bedroom windowsill. Each plant was just $2, and I bought a few nice terracotta pots to put them in, too.

However, I realised that these plants won’t last too long, AND I didn’t want to have to put ugly pot-bases under these terracotta pots – so I came up with a bit of a lifehack solution.

I left the plants in their original plastic pots, and simply put each one into a big zip-lock bag – which I then placed inside the terracotta pots.

Voila! No leakage, the plants stay moist, and it looks pretty because the plastic pot + bag are hidden.

This way, when the annuals die off, I can just pop down to the nursery and buy a few replacements for a couple of bucks, and pop them back into the terracotta pots.

Instant indoor annual garden!

Next on my list is adding some more shelving to the studio – and figuring out a better way to store my silver wire. In the top photo you can see I currently just have it stored in piles on a shelf – which is super-inefficient, as I’m forever digging through the piles to find the wire size I need.

I also want to re-paint my desks, as they’re looking a little shabby these days… might be a summer break project!