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AVE Styles was launched from a laptop sitting on my couch. I've never had a creative space to call home for my business. I'm a nomad - traveling from my couch to my kitchen island to Starbucks to my bed...That's the nice thing about laptops, I guess, but after awhile you start to want a desk to put all of your papers on and place to leave your job at the end of the day. By not having a desk I often find myself taking my work "home" with me. I spend entire evenings working from the couch instead of engaging in a game with my family. So, I created a creative space with the help of some friends from Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. Granted, the space came just as we decided to put our house on the market, but for at least for a short season I have been able to experience what it is like to have a place for my business to call home.

Check out the before and after! Crazy, right?!

It sure feels good! It feels great to open the door and know my work is waiting for me, and at the same time, to shut it and leave it for another day. I also like that I can't see the laundry basket of clothes waiting to be folded or anything else that reminds me of chores I need to do outside of AVE Styles. I also love that I'm surrounded by objects that make me "feel" more creative. A gold pair of scissors, fresh flowers, old books, a vintage calendar...They all bring about a thought or a feeling when you stare at them, which could be a source of inspiration for my next project.

As part of setting up the perfect creative space, I said good-bye to the laptop and hello to a desktop computer. Not just any desktop PC though. It's the Sprout, which is pretty much made for visual creatives like me that work with images incessantly. It has built in 3D scanning technology, as well as a full creative suite that let's you edit and draw with ease. Tomorrow I'll show you what it can do, but for now, you'll find my list of creative office must-haves:

Top 5 Must-Haves for a Creative Space:

1. Fresh flowers - they just make me smile, especially when they're peonies.

2. Comfortable desk - if you're going to be sitting there for hours you better like your desk.

3. A journal - all of my best ideas are written down with pen and paper in a journal.

4. Natural light - you can't necessarily buy natural light, but it's so important to my creative process.

5. The HP Sprout - obviously, I've become a fan of using a desktop computer.

Photos by Gina Meola.