Craft Supplies and Dangly Charms

Today is a snow day, the second of this winter.  I wouldn't mind but it should really be called an ice storm day and I'm not much keen on them.

Over the weekend Tom and I have been putting the basement back together.  All the stuff that was temporarily stored in boxes in the office and family room is now back down there, mostly in the right place.  While we were unpacking I went through all the kids craft supplies, games and Halloween stuff and filled 3 bags with bits and bobs for donation.

Craft supplies are something we have a quite a few of and I find it difficult to keep them tidy, it's not easy to make opened bags of feathers, sequins and pompoms look attractive but I've done my best and got it all to fit in this storage unit.

I found a lot of Rose's unfinished craft kits so this morning in the newly cleaned and tidied basement we made dangly charms.  Here they are and that's 1 kit down.  Only 4 to go.  And yes, that is a crop top, before you ask I just don't know.

That's what I do on snow days, how do you spend yours?
Kirstin

A whole lot of not much

I celebrate this Friday with a great week of achieving almost nothing.  Here's why...

• Snow day/ice storm
• Furnace installation
• Dishwasher malfunction

All these things have completely disrupted my plans for doing stuff and as a result I am not much further toward any of my tidying and sewing goals for this month.

On Wednesday, when the schools were closed and the kids were home and the plumbers were making an excessive amount of noise in the basement I finished altering muslin #1 of a jacket I tried to make last year.  I then cut new tissue pieces and made another muslin which needs further alteration.  So I altered muslin #2 and am ready with my new pattern pieces to make muslin #3.  This final (hopefully) one will be made of a heavier weight fabric and have sleeves so I will get a proper idea if it will work for me.  So next week I'll know if I can go ahead and buy nice fabric or if it's back to the drawing board and a new pattern.

I was going to insert a picture here of me in the muslin but when I took one it looked awful.  Mmm, maybe it's back to the drawing board before muslin #3.

I did some more tidying in my closet.  Something I've figured out from sorting out my clothes and jewellery, which incidentally now looks like this...

Is that even if my more boring things don't 'spark joy' individually it does give me a great deal of pleasure having them all arranged nicely and I would really like to get my closet sorted out so that I feel a bit excited to look in it in the morning.  I have to get dressed everyday so I think it would be nice if it was a fun experience.

At the moment the bottom of my closet is a holding bay for the thrift store so I found a nice big plastic box and got everything sorted into that.  Then I arranged all my hanging clothes from longest to shortest, rising to the right which is supposed to be uplifting, not sure about this but am happy to give it a try.  My closet now has barely anything in it.

And finally, now that the basement is finished for the time being it's time to put everything back in it so today I emptied out all the craft, art and stationery supplies onto the floor and made some attempt to sort them into a more rational order.  I've done this many times over the past few years and never had a particularly satisfactory result.  I still haven't because they are currently all over the floor.  Oh well, that will be a great job for this weekend.

And that's it.  Next week I must get out and try to find some quilting cotton for Wonky Wheels and get muslin #3 done and dusted or not!

Have a toptastic weekend

Kirstin

Joyful Storage Spaces

This week I read ‘Spark Joy’ by Marie Kondo. It’s actually the companion to her first book, 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up', but I’ve seen the Netflix series so obviously I know everything already and anyway I couldn’t find the first one at the library.

As you will know if you’ve been following this blog I have been slowly clearing out my home. However, I’d not really given much thought to actual tidying, I thought things would automatically get tidier just because there is less stuff but I am discovering that this is not necessarily the case.

So for me KonMari mania has come at a good time.

I read ‘Spark Joy’ from cover to cover (all 278 pages of it) and one thing really resonated with me and that is that you should make your storage spaces look as pretty as you can.

To put this into practice Rose and I set out to organise the drawers in her room where she keeps her jewellery. We had a lot of fun.

First we went through everything and Rose chose what ‘sparks joy’ for her. She’s quite good at this process and I have noticed that now she says thank you to all the rejected items she finds it much easier to let go. This is the pile of stuff going to the thrift store.

Then we sorted all the stuff we had left by category and organised it in the drawers with little boxes and some drawer dividers I made from scrapbooking card stock (I might put up a tutorial on that). Notice how we made good use of the inside of a Ferrero Rocher box.

We are really pleased at how it looks like a little boutique and now you can actually see all the pretty things she might even wear some of it. Maybe she'll even keep it tidy.

We also did a thorough sort out of the big set of shelves so now there is room for the little jewellery box of clip on earrings from Grandma, these have been a big hit. Here she is in one of her favourite pairs.

Next on the list is the pantry which currently looks like a bomb hit it, I’m not sure I can make it look this pretty but I’m going to give it a jolly good shot.

Happy tidying
Kirstin