Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Facing the clutter and tossing the (s)crap

I've been tackling my craft room the last several days. I took pictures of it before I started, but I'm too embarrassed to post them. Maybe I'll post before and after pictures when I have after pictures....

I have boxes piled three deep and almost ceiling high across one side of the room threatening to topple at vibrations from the next low flying helicopter. Fabric, yarn, beads, patterns, thread, silk flowers, hemp, counted cross stitch kits, paints, candle making ingredients, stamps, clay.... you name it, I've probably got it (even if I don't remember buying it).

I've been sorting through boxes of clay scraps, old clay canes so old and hard they either crumble or feel like they've been baked, and blocks of fimo from before there was a fimo soft.

At first I tried to salvage scraps. When I hit 10 quart zip bags of scrap, I began to wonder if I wasn't wasting my time and energy peeling bits and pieces apart from wrinkled sheets of Saran Wrap, time and energy I could be using to make beads if only I just threw some of it away. So I did. ***GASP!!***

I threw away scrap that I knew came from 7 years ago. I threw away fimo blocks that could have been used as hockey pucks if they were round. I scraped old clay off of bottles I never got around to baking years and years ago, and saved bottles/tossed jars and cans.

I can now walk into the room, and sit on a folding chair with 2 feet of semi-clear space around my chair.

Boy, I'd like to say I'll never be this much of a pack rat again. But I'm pretty sure I've said that before... please, please let it be true this time around?

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