This week, we are pleased to feature the desk of Sara Tams, the owner of sarah + abraham, an online boutique specializing in children's stationery and personalized art prints. Working from a home office in her Chicago-area 1920's bungalow, Sara incorporates illustrations from several talented artists into unique stationery products. 

Sara started out two years ago working in a 3' by 5' "cloffice", but quickly realized that she would need more space and turned a playroom into a home office. An IKEA kitchen island combined with lots of wall shelves made for a great workstation. She recently made some more changes to her workspace when she hired her fist employee to help with filling orders and marketing. Although she dreams of someday moving into a loft space in a retail/office building down the street, Sara is happy for now to be home with her children and able to move back and forth between her roles as stay-at-home-mom and entrepreneur throughout each day.

Here are some of the details Sara shared with us: 

The Desk: IKEA
Chair: definitely not as comfortable as I'd like! someday...
Clock: orange cuckoo clock from decoylab.etsy.com
Charging: cell phone, ipod, camera battery
Paper: mostly extra thick, bright white cardstock
Color: for clothing: black, white, gray, brown; for design: orange, chocolate brown, gray
'Thank You': I'm a firm believer in the handwritten thank you note
Flat Note Stationery or Folded Note Cards: both... flat for a quick note to a teacher, folded for friends and family
Handwritten or Emailed: handwritten as much as possible
Favorite Stationery: letterpress
Last Party Invitation Sent and Occasion: bug-themed invites for my son's 6th birthday party in May
Book (current, recent or favorite): my favorite authors are Jane Green and Nicholas Sparks
Magazine: US Weekly (sad but true!)
Organization: lots of clear wall files, shelves and bins
Calendar: letter-size sheet that I print from Excel and write on throughout the month
Day-at-a-glance: coffee, check email, make breakfast for the kids, drop them off at school, work, pick the kids up from school, errands, sometimes go to the gym, work, dinner, a little more work, sometimes watch a DVD, read a little before bed
Current Projects: website updates and finalizing Christmas products
Planning: I've met a couple of local artists recently who I'm hoping to collaborate with on two new product lines
Business: need to work on marketing, SEO and advertizing

Sara, we absolutely envy your wood floors, windows, cheerful walls, lamps (instead of fluorescent lights) and incredible organization.  Your desk and office are absolutely lovely! For more information on Sara's business, visit her website or her blog. Thank you, Sara, for opening up your office to us! We absolutely love it!

Do you have a darling desk? We are currently looking for bloggers/designers/stationers extraordinaire to highlight in our "Desk" feature. Email us at whitneyenglish@yahoo.com if you'd like to share a photo of your desk with us, or to suggest other blog topics and ideas. As always, you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get updates on new designs, warehouse sales, and industry events.