There comes a time when even those who think they are mighty must fall. I crumpled at the craft, well I don’t know what to call it. “Room” gives it a gravitas it does not deserve and “Pile” fails to bring across the enormit of the job. In 1999 I began scrapbooking. I had always kept our photograph albums up to date and scrapbooking combined this with my love of playing with paper, pens and ink. All went swimmingly, I created pages that were lovely to look at, that had lots of journalling so we knew who everyone was and what they were doing and everybody loved to flick through them. Then two things happened. Photography went digital and scrapbooking went mainstream in the UK.
Net result, too many photographs and too many materials to work with. Once I had to buy 80% of my stock online from the States, now I could get it in TK Maxx and Tescos. Sadly, the latter resulted in the death of practically every bricks and mortar scrapping shop and we have come full circle. If I want anything other than twee tat, I mainly have to buy from the US. Once again, I digress.
I couldn’t be bothered to collate my photographs any longer. There were too many of them and I had too many materials. I didn’t know where to start. So I am going back to my roots….
I am not a tidy declutterer. I like to get stuff out and sort it into piles or the bin. Only when I am finished do I put it all in order. Odd, perhaps as I am so organised elsewhere. I think it’s because to me the declutter process has priority over the tidy process. I just want to get it out asap.
The desk is the “holding” area, most stuff on here will be allowed to stay. But not necesssarily here. In the meantime I have emptied both the filing cabinet and the wooden chest of drawers but not done anything about the stuff that usually lives on the desk (paints and pens mainly). Not ideal, but I’ll get there in the end.
Work in progress.
Stuff to go. First dibs go to Sunday School and Messy Church, then local crafting friends and then the good old Charity shop.
Starting to look better.
And finally, because all that was rather stressfull. Some calming tulips.
one pair of shoes at a time 
I can just about justify the several bin bags and boxes of yarn stashed under my bunk. At a stretch I could hold onto the half ton of fabric leftover from my dressmaking days (why bother now I don’t work?) The making jewellery out of junk was always a faint hope. The cross stitch was a useful therapy while I was laid up for 18 months but every wall in the house has a framed cross stitch picture on it.
Beginning to get the picture? Only thing being – every time I think of jettisoning one of my “useful bits” boxes, I find I need eyes for a knitted toy or those bits of jewellery look stunning on that little girl bear I just crocheted.
To be fair, this is only my paper/art stash. There is also yarn and fabric….
Ah, the craft stuff…I only really have knitting and sewing stuff…but I am coming to realise that I actually don’t really like sewing (other than repairing things) and I am unlikely to ever make my own clothes. So, perhaps I don’t need to keep all of the fabric I have stashed away! Or, at least, I need to make an effort to use it, perhaps for things more simple than clothes!
At the moment I am trying to use up my stash of knitting yarn- eventually (at the current rate by the end of 2016..) I would like to have no stash and just get the yarn for one project at a time. Much more focussed, and no need to store stuff.
I think craft stuff can be difficult to part with
…as it contains so many possibilities, and chances to say ‘just in case’..
I haven’t even started on the fabric, yarn and “useful things” but I did managed to go into a beautiful yarn shop last week. Admiire, stroke and sniff and then walk out empty handed!
ooooh, I caught my breath just reading this…. I can only do it if the choice is so overwhelming I don’t know where to begin so just back out quietly!
Gillie, I never got into the scrapbooking fad. For me photos aren’t all that important I have the memories in my head, although I did start taking pictures for the blog.
I am the same as you when it comes to cleaning out anything. it all comes out and makes one heck of a mess before it gets organized and put away. People have always laughed at me when they see the mess I make and call it cleaning.
It was never a fad for me, I had always kept photographs so it was an extension of something I already did. The aim of this clearout is to get back to the basics I had when I started 15 years ago (when if you said you scrapbooked people imagined an A4 sugar paper book stuffed with pictures cut out of magazines!)
Here it’s the knitting that dominates! I don’t even buy it as “stash”, just too many spontaneous projects that end up as UFOs, or else leftovers. For some reason I thought I was being clever unravelling and re-balling things that I’d knitted but never wore… Yesterday I decided that as I buy nicer yarns in more suitable colours these days (well, I try!), I am going to dump everything that realistically will never be used, not even for blankets. I have become a yarn snob LOL
Fortunately, I know a group who knits up this kind of ex-stash and is grateful for donations!!
Oh, the space that will give me… 🙂 Theoretically.
Another yarn snob here. I have also learned that I don’t like knitting clothes, i prefer to knit things. On a cushion cover rush at the moment. All put aside for Chirstmas presents.