guest post - betsy & iya:

Received this submission from Modish and I love seeing store fronts and how people display their items so I had to share. Also love that this couple gets to work together, and they live in Portland - 2 things I would love to do! Be sure to read the advice at the end of this article too, I so appreciated it .. I tend to be a big chicken when it comes to taking risks but how can we get anywhere if we don't just go for it, right? :) Enjoy!

Betsy & Iya is run by Betsy, and her husband Will- they just moved from a 289sf box to this beautiful new shop in a vibrant NW Portland neighborhood. It's an old cinema building that is full of charm and character, with brick and huge windows that let the light pour in. When Betsy saw it was for lease, her heart jumped and they made the quick decision to just go for it and branch out from just jewelry, into a full boutique! She and Will spent weeks repainting and remodeling the space into what you see now- and Will built all the cool shelving and rope structures you see!

Beyond just her signature style jewelry, she's brought in a range of clothing and lifestyle goods from other indie designers she admires, that she discovered at craft shows or on her crazy cross-country roadtrips. She says, "I'm stocking only independent artists and designers who make a refined product that I find beautiful in some way...every piece in my shop speaks to me, and because of that, there's a cohesion, a unique perspective, one that you'll only find here." There's gorgeous hand-painted blouses, locally made dresses and tees, leather pouches, art and letterpress cards, candles and perfume, shaving supplies for the guys- she even just added a great new lingerie section!

The boutique is upfront and Betsy and her assistants still hand-make all the Betsy & Iya jewelry in the little mint green studio in the back of the shop. Having started this business nearly four years ago, their story is proof of how hard-work and determination really do pay off. Betsy says her secret to success is to follow her gut and just JUMP- especially if it terrifies you. You have to get out there and make it happen!

Really loved seeing Nan Lawson's work at this shop too, go Nan!

studio tour / Benign Objects:

Today we have a studio tour from Benign Objects. Rachel has a great sense of design, I love the things she comes up with in her shop and her blog is full of great inspiration posts. Check Rachel out on Facebook + Twitter too!

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Hello friends, Rachel, paper lover, designer and proprietress of Benign Objects here again to share my work space with you. I work from my home outside of Minneapolis.

My main workspace is inside a fairly decent-sized closet. The old-school grass wallpaper was already here when I moved in, so that worked out nicely. The desk is a vintage find from the sixties and, along with the matching cabinet, are the two heaviest pieces of furniture I own, but they're big and spacious and are one of the few good things I got out my last full-time office job. My trusty HP printer is old as all get out but still works wonderfully for quick things and samples. I have two other printers that handle more heavy-duty jobs and I send really high-end stuff out to the pros.

My Macbook Pro is pretty much my life. What you can't see here are the ridiculous amount of cords and USB cables plugged into it: hubs, printers, two back-up drives, digital camera cables, etc. In the future, I look forward to getting a desktop mac with a giant screen that will glaze my eyes over, but for right now, my Pro has done just fine and portability is a must for me when I work on-location in the cities.

To the left of my desk I've pinned a few completed projects, some favorite photos, design inspiration and my favorite vintage postcards which I use to make gift tags.

In addition, I also pin projects that are in the works to a white-walled background that I string with twine and clothespins. Since I work alone, I like to put works in progress up on the board and come back to them a day or so later. Usually if I'm deciding on color or design options, the answer will immediately jump out at me after I've let everything sit for a day and sleep on it (for instance, check out the two pink birthday card with cakes. Any idea which one I settled on?). The silhouette clock is a working prototype that will be be put in the shop next week.

I have lots of book shelves. I'm an avid reader of everything from health, diet and fitness-related stuff to design/illustration books and magazines. I've had the Gibson guitar for almost 10 years and it's my baby. It needs a tune-up and to be restrung, though. I took lessons a long time ago but am now pretty much limited to power chords. I'm no singer, but if no one's around, I like to sing House of the Rising Sun like I've got the pipes of SuBo. So far no one has called the fire department and reported a wailing, treed cat.

One of my favorite things about the room is my new oatmeal-colored couch. I love the pop of the pillows against the nubby texture of the couch. It's also a queen sleeper and surprisingly comfortable. If I'm working super late and don't want to disturb my husband, I just sleep on the pull out. The art above my couch is a mishmash of found pieces, a photo of my dog and some of my paintings, pencil drawings and collage work.

The other bookshelf is the supply shelf and contains lots of paper, frames and other odds and ends. At the top are the holiday freebies I did last year and an old self-portrait. At the right are some of my favorite collage pieces based on the three Fates.

I can't live without plants, though plants typically can't live with me. I've managed to keep these alive, and I'm proud of that. Proud enough to take a photo of them for my tour.

And finally, a close-up of the work table that came with my desk. It's huge and I do most of my cutting and measuring on it. The black invitation on the left is a recent project for a bride in

Southern California. We used tone-on-tone black foil stamping on super thick black paper to create a very luxe invitation. To the right are some bachelorette getaway invites I just finished. You can see more of them here.

I love working from home; it's really convenient and I love making my own hours. One thing I really miss about working at an agency or in a group setting though is being around other creative types and bouncing ideas off of them. To some extent, blogging, tweeting and facebook help alleviate some of that creative loneliness, but eventually I'd love to be in a shared space with other creative types.

Thanks to Danni for featuring my first ever studio tour. Please come visit me any time at my blog and see what I'm up to.

studio tour: fieldguided

This week's studio tour is from the lovely Anabela of fieldguided. I simply love Anabela's blog and all her creations in her shop. Follow her on twitter too! I'm excited to have her here today sharing her studio with us. Hope you enjoy and are inspired today, friends.

I use a tiny little room in my apartment as my sewing room. It's about 6 feet by 7. It has a door that used to lead out to a balcony above the front entrance, but is now a Juliet balcony. I usually end up cutting & tracing out in the living room since space in this room is so limited. I also can’t bring my ironing board in here at all, so sometimes I move my sewing machine out too. This room gets really wonderful light because there are south-facing windows, which is my favourite thing about the space.

When I set up this room I had nearly no budget for it at all, so I’ve had to be creative with storage solutions. A lot of the things in here came from thrift stores, antiques markets, Home Depot, or Ikea.

We bought a narrow but long length of plywood at Home Depot and some legs at Ikea, and my partner Geoff built the table. I painted it a peach colour. I have large storage boxes underneath that I use to store my fabric. The boxes are numbered so that I can write down what each box contains in a notebook. My chair is a lovely yellow enameled stool that a friend of mine found in an antique shop for $10.

I love to surround myself with pretty things in this room. I often change things around. I have lots of cat things, shiny things, milk glass, and pink objects. Geoff doesn’t complain about the fact that the rest of our apartment is a bit girly but this room is definitely the most girly. Some of the things I have include an old velvet floral hat that I got from Miss Quite Contrary on Etsy , spools of sequins, found photographs from Clever Nettle, a cat mask from the dollar store, and a Diana+ Dreamer camera that still has a roll of film in it.

My sewing machine is a Husqvarna 230 Electronic that was made in Sweden in the early 1990s and that I bought second hand at a sewing machine shop. I love the 1990s colours! It’s been a great machine for me -- I have never had a problem with it, even while sewing leather. My serger is an old Singer that I bought from the sewing studio where I learned to sew. They were upgrading their machines at the time, so I got it for a good price. It’s a workhorse! I found my adjustable dress form on Cragislist. It took me months of stalking Craigslist to find one that was affordable! I think I paid about $60 for it, which is actually a huge bargain in Toronto, where things like this are quite hard to find.

I have a cork board that I have covered in little mementos that I have collected over the last few months. The Lancome ad from 1940 came from Sofia Barão’s “French corner” on Etsy, where she sells French antiques. I also tacked up some of my favourite business cards, and ones from people who are special to me. I usually have them littered all over my apartment so it was nice to put a few up (my favourite is the one for Summerland). The bits of nude lace were in a package I got from Alice of Forest Bound -- I had put the package contents away and rediscovered it recently. I love when that happens.

I like to use Japanese sewing books for making dresses. I’ve built up a small collection but I’m always on the lookout for new ones. When I took these pictures I was about to cut out some tencel to make a dress from the Daily Sewing Book.

Anyone who sews knows that you tend to accumulate a lot of notions and small tools -- I find that pegboard is invaluable for organization -- for something that is quite inexpensive, I think it looks really nice. I recently bought this simple galvanized steel storage unit at Ikea for $15 to store my overflow fabrics (including the fabrics for Summer Water). I have more boxes on this shelf! There are just so many tiny bits & pieces that are easy to lose. I keep some of our shipping supplies in the box with the business card on it.

I hung up a variation of our Mini Meow tote on the wall -- we haven’t produced this one yet so at the moment it’s just a reminder that I have to do that!

One of my favourite things in this room is the “Happy Cloud” lampshade I got from my dear friend and Summer Water partner, Caitlin Holcomb. It has a pink lightbulb in it! I rarely use overhead lighting but I couldn’t resist giving this room a pink glow. I also hung up the sign I made for our Little Winter table as a reminder of one of the best weekends I had all year.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour, and thanks for having me, Danni!

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Now accepting studio tour submissions! If you have a studio you think would be a good fit for being featured on oh, hello friend, please email me!

studio tour / Sadie Olive:

Hello Dears! I am so excited to share this studio tour with you today - I know many of you are familiar with the pretty vintage shop: Sadie Olive! Sara is here today sharing her space and her amazing studio filled to the max with vintage goodness. She also blogs with lots of daily photos and inspiration.

I feel my office changes the most out of any space in my home. I am constantly finding new objects to adorn the space. I go treasure hunting for the shop at least twice a week, most weeks, and I almost always find a few things for myself while I'm on the hunt. At the moment, I'm drawn to old clocks and cameras, worn wood storage, and aged parchment floral prints. I love to add to and edit my collections as I go. That's one of the good things about selling vintage items... I can enjoy them for a bit before they find a new home.

My tiny camera collection is a current favorite among my collections. I've found each one at a different estate, and I'm not sure I'll be parting with them anytime soon. They sit right next to my computer, so I can see them while I work.

If I had to pick a favorite item in my space, it would probably be the black Machinist's Chest I picked up a few years ago. It's solid wood, and has the best patina to it's black paint, and those rusty drawer pulls I just love. I keep a ton of small treasures tucked away inside, including a drawer full of antique photographs.

I've also had fun coming up with clever storage solutions to keep my space functional, like the two rolls of bubble wrap you see on the wall, which are hung on wooden dowels that fold flat against the wall when not in use. Old suitcases and tool boxes hide many of the not so pretty, but needed items that we use to ship and pack orders.

studio tour / Nora Griffin:

Today's studio tour comes from a good friend - Nora Griffin! I've actually met Nora at a craft show, she's so sweet and is so creative. She runs an etsy shop, & you can follow her on twitter too! Thanks for giving us a tour of your studio Nora!

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Hi, my name is Nora Griffin. I’m a wife, mom, crafter, blogger, little Etsy store owner and a graduate student here in Orange County, California. I am ridiculously fortunate to have my own little room in our house to play with paper and stamps when I don’t have to read or write about Sociological theory (which I should actually be doing right now).

Okay I have a rubber stamp addiction…

now that we have that in the open we can move on.

This is the area next to my desk…the drawers hold

stamp pads, scissors, punches and all the other

supplies I want to keep easily accessible.

Right across from my desk is the “hang out with me”

couch…where my son and husband camp out while I work on something.

At the end of the couch are my sewing machine table

and an old legal-sized file cabinet that has fabric organized in hanging files.

The other end of the couch is a bookcase of storage.

Here’s the view from the front of my desk. It might make

the room a little awkward to have the table sticking out

into it, but it so nice to not face a wall. In front of my desk is the “beast”

Or at least that’s what my husband calls my 72-drawer library card catalogue because it's so heavy to move even when it's empty...but he was the one who found it for me in his great-uncle's garage. It holds rubber stamps organized by category and other various craft supplies.

Finally there is more storage behind my desk (can you really ever have enough?) One of my favorite storage items is the large jars of ribbon. The best thing about crafts supplies is how cute they can be so it’s always more fun to display the colors and patterns.

Thanks so much for taking a peek into my crafty space…

I guess I should get back to that schoolwork stuff.

studio tour / valdirose:

Today's beautiful studio tour comes all the way from Italy from the lovely Valdirose. If you haven't stopped by her blog yet, you must! She runs this charming b&b and I wish I could fly to Italy right now to stay ;) For now I'll just dream about it through all her pictures. Thanks for sharing with us today Irene!

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This is my work place: an old table of my grand mother and a folding chair I bought to the market in Avignon. I love the orangerie of my b&b so I decided to work there. I started using everything I found there to separated and create order: the cutlery is perfect for keeping the paper well separated and the box of tea seems born to hold my tapes...Usually I do not use pencils but I have always some here and there... because of their smell: I love it so much!!! I l like also surrounding myself with memories: it helps me work better... I love this place :every hour is changing like the light of the sun...