This stupid flicker made more than a dent - we now have a hole in our house!
If you read yesterday's post, you probably know where I'm going with this. I'm deciding to take a stand against (with?) my crafting supplies and use some of them up. Radical, I know. But when you are faced with such a ridiculous amount of stuff, you know you'd better use it or lose it (donate it) before it takes over your room, second room, house life. I don't mind losing the "she who dies with the most fabric wins" competition. I also want to lose the "with the most scrapbooking supplies" and "with the most Sharpie markers" contests.
To begin, I thought I'd take a look at what is taking up the most space in my craft room. Fabric wins, hands down. Here's a prime example: I have an entire bin of polar fleece, for Pete's sake. What is up with that? Ok, I know what is up with that - I've had it forever. I made sweaters, blankets, neck gaiters, even a bathrobe from the stuff several years ago. But now? Now it sits there. Waiting. For what?
That is the sixty-thousand dollar question, isn't it? "For what?" For a project to come up that I want to make, for inspiration to strike, and then hopefully I'll have the necessary yardage and/or color to fit the bill? Sometimes it happens. I'd even say many times it happens. But how long is it worth it for me to store the stuff, waiting for that perfect idea? It is arguably lowering my quality of life because of the clutter and lost living space. What is that worth?
Now here's the real money: Can I apply that question to all of my crafting supplies? Should things in my stash have an expiration date? Is that the same as giving myself deadlines to use them?
As a girl who can accomplish incredible things when given a deadline, but pokes along in Procrastination Land without one, I'm hoping the answer is yes. Give the stuff a shelf life, and if it doesn't pass the smell test every so often, out it should go to a new home.
I need to stop for a minute here and make a few things clear. I'm not going to apply the same standard to every single thing in my stash. I couldn't. Some of this stuff, especially the vintage stuff, just can't be replaced. Some of it has too many memories attached. Some of it just makes me happy. Just as dry pasta has a longer shelf life than cottage cheese, so do buttons keep better than novelty yarns.
There's also a difference between supplies:tools and supplies:raw materials. Most of the tools will stay, no matter how infrequently I use them. But I'm going to try to look beyond a thing's original monetary cost. I don't want to hold onto things just because I remember what I paid for them. If they are costing me in other ways to keep them, I can take the money loss to regain the value of a peaceful state of mind.
But wait. I'm rambing a bit here. Yes, in a round-about way I am talking about de-cluttering, but what I really want to talk about isn't just sorting things into the keep/donate/trash piles, but rather more of a plan it/make it/do it mentality. I've already done the weeding out bit, and I'd wager a lot of you have been through that process too, but obviously that wasn't enough. Now we need some kind of strategy, not just for keeping, but for using.
...to be continued.
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