Form Meets Function | My Home Office Packaging Station

I'm not sure who was the bigger neat freak while I was growing up, my grandmothers, my father or my mother. Being organized was ingrained in us from an early age. As my father used to say, "everything has a home." He was big on putting things back right where you found them. And my grandma Burnett had a closet just for my sister and I where she stored all the toys, board games and craft projects we could possibly want. We knew that once we were done playing, everything had to go back in the closet. That simple.

So, while setting up my home office and simultaneously finessing my brand, the form and function of my style played into one another hand in hand. I'll explain how. 

I used to package client orders with hand made papers as seen here and here. Papers that would be measured and cut down at my desk. Guess what. That was time consuming, storing the papers was a pain, and because I'm also whimsical I would end up buying different papers whenever I fancied. As cute as the packages were they did not reinforce my style or my "look" and they were inconsistent, not to mention pricey. 

Turns out, if I look at a few key elements such as how I dress and the colors I've chosen for my website and logo, they're all neutral colors, a mix of soft, subdued, earthy warm and cool tones. When I realized this, I thought about my very favorite place to buy gifts, Columbine in Corte Madera. The cutest boutique shop ever! Well, they have this really sweet way of packaging gifts, so I took a few cues from them and tweaked it just a little to make it my own. I did this not only because it would match my brand, but the packaging would be much cheaper and much easier to do. In fact, I cut my packaging and shipping costs by over 60%. 

So, in my trusty IKEA credenza that has been multi-purposed through four homes that we've lived in - I have everything I need at my finger tips: Glass jars hold the fearthers, tulle, and ribbon; cabinets store the various size flat boxes, and the drawers store scissors, stationary, favorite gold writing pen, tape, CD holders and back up supplies. The unsightly items like mailing boxes and excelsior live in a corner behind my desk that no one can see. Although, I'm sure with time, I'll come up with a good solution on how to store those, too.

And there you have it - an example of form meets function!!