Finding Peace in the Mayhem Part 2

"The easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it" ~ The Minimalists

Way back in October last year I posted about trying to keep my art and craft supplies under control without being "an organized hoarder". It's taken me eight months of steadily going through things, assessing and reassessing them, to finally feel like I have it all at a level I am comfortable with. 

In fact we sold the bookcase in the picture above along with another large pine bookcase and a pine sideboard this week and I love the extra space we have without them. 

The picture below is of the same wall minus the white bookcase. I've started a family photo wall there to display some of the pics that would otherwise rarely see the light of day. I still have some other photos to add but I haven't picked up frames for them yet. The small three drawer storage unit doubles as a charging station for our mobiles as well as storing place-mats, tablecloths, etc for the dining table. It's small but efficient.

The cookbooks that used to live on the white bookcase now live in a new space I created in the kitchen when I donated a few kitchen appliances and things we no longer used.

I went through all the box files and shredded a lot of the unnecessary paperwork and just kept the essentials. This took longer than I expected but I can now store the two box files that are left in a cupboard in a different room.They're still easily accessible but now live out of sight.

The photography magazines are no longer a problem. I put some into the collage box for cutting up (my daughter and her friends love the animal pictures in them) and I no longer purchase photography magazines unless there's a really, really, interesting article in them that I can't find online. I discovered that I could find a lot of really great information online and some of the magazines share their articles online too.

I still accept the home and garden magazines that mum gives me and I sometimes buy one if I see something I like. I've created a series of mood boards for our house in a hard-covered exercise book. I cut tabs down the side and made separate areas for the different rooms that I'm going to be working on. I then glue in any pictures, paint samples or articles that appeal to me for those rooms. See images below.

This has made it so much easier for me to pin down a style that I like and I don't have to wade through stacks of magazines trying to find an idea I liked a few weeks ago. The rest of the magazines go into the collage box.

As for the art supplies that were all on the shelves. I've really pared back on them. I only kept the paints, pens and pencils etc that I used regularly and I gave my daughter the felt tip pens and some gel pens that I didn't use much if at all. My daughter and her friends color in their adult coloring books with them.

Most of my art supplies now fit in a secret compartment I had my hubby build into my desk. (see pic below) Clockwise from the top we have my back up external drive for my photos, my phone charger cord, 3 pencil cases all inside 1 yellow one. I use these when I'm going away somewhere and want to take art supplies with me. I can build 3 different kits for travel. The yellow pencil case holds my small watercolor kit, brushes, watercolor pencils and a pencil for sketching. The tartan case (not visible) holds my sketching stuff and normal colored pencils. The blue case (not visible) holds my gel pens and whatever else appeals to me for working in my journals. Under the pencil cases is some bluetack, then comes my watercolor paints, below that is a small tin with business cards in it, below that is my gel pens, next to that are some markers and pens I sketch with, then a cluttered box of miscellaneous office supplies, some envelopes and supermarket sellers cards on top, then above we have my mini camera flash and a box of mints, above that is a box of memory cards, my headphones, a charger cable for my Sony Walkman and some usb drives, then we're back to the hard drive. In the centre are 3 lettering stencils that my daughter uses for school projects and a couple of bookmarks, also my compass set. 

When my desk top is down you wouldn't even know that compartment was there. (see pic below) On my desk top lives the phone, a pencil cup and pad for messages etc. My camera lives here mostly and in the right hand corner I have my colored pencils, paintbrushes and watercolor pencils. I also usually keep my work diary here but I had it in my bag when this pic was taken. My tablet doesn't usually live here but it was charging at the time of the photo. I also have a small statue of Guanyin near my pencils. (not sure if you can see it in the photo) Also not shown in these photos are my acrylic paints, art paper and journals storage. They're still a work in progress and I'll show you that some other time. 

I have also pared down all my art books. I cheated a little in this though. I gave them all to my mother-in-law. She has a large studio and a large collection of art books that she regularly lends out to friends and family. I figured if they lived there they would be used and appreciated more than if they lived on my shelf gathering dust in between occasional uses. I also make frequent use of our local library which saves me having to purchase art books.

So as you can see I've really had a good clean out of my art supplies, books, magazines, and old bills and have a much cleaner and clearer space to work in. I could probably still pare down the stuff in the miscellaneous office supply box but it's not bothering me and I do use what's in there.

Week 36 of 365 Challenge Abstract Week

It's been a busy week this week. I've been tidying out the spare room wardrobe which has been used as a dumping ground for the Christmas decorations, kids toys, sleeping bags, blankets, towels and other assorted bits and bobs. A lot of which should be kept in a linen cupboard but this house doesn't have one. 

The plan is to empty it out completely and put shelves in one half for the sheets and towels to live on while still being able to use the other half as a wardrobe for guests if needed. I guess that's the downside to having on-demand gas water heating, there's no hot water tank or the linen cupboard that goes with it. 

Once the shelves are built the plan is to put the sliding wardrobe doors from our wardrobe onto the spare room wardrobe. The original doors there weren't in very good condition. Then we hope to install two front opening doors on our wardrobe after we install the wardrobe organizer. That way we can access the middle shelving on the organizing unit. The existing sliding doors cover the center of the wardrobe so would make the shelves unaccessible from the outside.

Hopefully I'll be able to start painting our bedroom in the next four weeks. The kids are off on holiday for two weeks from next week so I'll have to wait until they go back. Then all of the bedrooms will be finished and that just leaves the lounge, office, and toilet to paint. The kitchen and bathroom will have to wait a lot longer unless we win the lottery. I won't even start with what needs doing there :)

Have a great week :)

Finding peace in the mayhem

Lately I've been following Joshua and Ryan the minimalists on their Instagram 31 day autumn clean out here and I've really been enjoying reading their tips on minimalism.

On day 13 two sentences really stand out for me 

 "The easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it."

"Ultimately, organizing is nothing more than well planned hoarding."

I have to say here that I'm guilty of organizing and reorganizing my art and craft supplies and other areas of our home. In the past year I purged art supplies before we moved and then again a couple of months ago but it seems that it needs to be done again and much as I'd love to purge everything and have nothing to organize and continually tidy, I do love my hobbies and they come with a certain amount of stuff. Sometimes determining which stuff should be kept and which stuff isn't really needed is difficult.

As you can see in the picture above, I try to keep the clutter down as much as possible and create peaceful pauses in between the mayhem on the other shelves but somehow the shelves become overfull and the peaceful shelf starts to look like a great place to put the over-spill. (I should mention here that there are another two levels of shelves below this that are full of box files and paints. I couldn't fit them in the picture because of the dining table but the table doesn't disguise the mess in the shelves above) 

Part of the problem could be that I'm storing my cookbooks in one of the shelves now when I used to have them stored in the kitchen at our last house. Unfortunately I have nowhere to do that in the kitchen here, yet. 

Another part of the problem is having no spare shelves to put new art supplies when they come into the house. The 'one in one out' approach doesn't really work if, like me you buy a new tube of paint or art pad etc before your old one runs out so that it's there ready when you need it.  

Magazines are also becoming a bit of a problem on my shelves. I only buy 2 Photography magazines, one is monthly and the other bi-monthly, but I keep them for a while and Mum reads them too before they get cut up and used for collages and school projects. I started pulling out useful Photoshop tutorials and keeping those in clear file folders but as you can see on the top shelf on the left, I've collected far more files than I intended to so they too have become another area that needs to be sorted through. They've even displaced some of my photography books now. 

The magazines in the top right shelf are house and garden themed and were given to me by Mum when she had finished with them. We're currently doing up our house so these are a great source of ideas for now. Eventually they'll join the other magazines in the box for cutting up.

Add to all of this the seemingly continuous flow of paperwork coming from my children's schools and the steady stream of bills and other assorted junk mail that comes across my desk and it seems increasingly hard to find peace in the mayhem.

So, somehow I have to find the middle path between total clear-out and organized hoarding before I run out of space to work :D

I'll let you know how that works out. Have a great week :)

Art and hobby supply cleanup part 3

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less ~ Socrates

This is the last part of my supply clean out and the toughest for me. The scrapbooking stuff, tools and misc stuff. As I mentioned in my last post, scrapbooking is my kryptonite. I collect ephemera and papers etc but I don't end up using them and have a hard time parting with them because they're pretty and they might come in useful one day. It's also made more difficult by the fact that I also like to make mixed media collages which can also use some of these things. The thought of separating the two is a headache on it's own.

Something that makes it a bit easier to part with them though is copyright. Printed paper, other people's photographs, fabrics and I'm sure some postage stamps have some kind of copyright protection on them. I may be able to use them in personal images but maybe not in images I want to sell. (It looks like a minefield when you look for information online). I'm not 100% sure on how this all works together when you add these items into your mixed media work but I prefer to err on the side of caution and create my own textures and background images either photographically, hand painted by me, or created in photoshop or illustrator by me. This all takes extra time and effort but at the end of the day I know that when I put an image online, I created everything myself so I don't have to worry about someone else's copyright. This in the end, made the paper collection much easier to part with.

As for the rest, it was time to roll up my sleeves and start going through the boxes.

• I love old postage stamps and will keep them for use in my private work in my journals and smaller canvases.
• I'm keeping the lino pieces and carving tools. The only reason I haven't used them yet is that I can't make up my mind on the logo I'm trying to create. I'd like to be able to print my logo on things. So far I've created lots of different logos and have lots of ideas for new ones but I just can't seem to be satisfied with any of them. I'm too fussy I guess or fickle maybe?
• The playing cards are a bit like the scrapbooking stuff really, I want to try making ATCs (Artist trading cards), but have never gotten around to it. On the plus side they don't take up much room and we could always play with them. I've kept them for now with a six month expiry date on them. If I don't use them before the six months are up then out they'll go.
• The ink and stamps are used mostly by my daughter and occasionally by me. (Copyright again in my mind). I've found them a new box and put them where my daughter can easily reach them.
• The lettering stencils, plastic set squares, protractors, and rulers etc, I've stored in a desktop file box. Much easier to reach and keep tidy. (See image above).
• The wire and solder has moved down to the garage where the soldering iron and vice etc are. My son wants to try making metal sculptures out of scrap metal and bolts and my hubby has agreed to help him with this. 
• I've kept the buttons and various paper fasteners. They might be useful when I start making my own journals.
• One other large thing that I got rid of was an old wooden table that I was using sometimes when working on larger projects. It had a chipboard top that water had ruined and was too low to work on without getting a sore back. It also took up a lot of space when I wasn't using it. This will be replaced by a plastic topped table that folds away for storage. It will save space and my back. I'm lucky our town is holding it's annual inorganic collection at the moment. (This is where the council allows us to put old furniture and appliances out at the kerb for collection for free. Many people drive around the neighborhood and pick up free bargain furniture and the council cleans up what is left at the end of the week).
• Everything else left, tools and metal fastenings mainly, I've put into a large plastic tool caddy on wheels. This gets them out of the way but easily moved to where I need them.

That seems to be the bulk of it all sorted out now. I've cleared a lot of space (magazines and scrapbooking papers mainly plus the table and a few canvases), and organized what's left so that the people that use it the most have the best access to it. It looks much better now. In six months I'll review a couple of things and maybe prune things a little more but for now I'm happy with the results.

I'll finish by saying that it's well worth the effort to go through your art and craft supplies every now and again. You may find that like me you have been storing a lot of supplies for a hobby that no longer interests you or one that you will never start. It's also amazing how many old broken rubber bands and solid liquids in bottles and other broken things that you may find too.

Have a great week :)

Art and hobby supply cleanup part 1

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, 

worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear,

 and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.” ~Jerome K. Jerome

Over the past couple of years I've been busy decluttering our home. I've gone through every cupboard and wardrobe, every bedroom and bathroom and every bookcase in our house at least twice. Removing all the unused, ill-fitting and unwanted items I could find. Now that I've gotten rid of all of the 'easy' stuff such as outgrown toys, clothes and books I'm now left with the 'harder' stuff. Children's artwork, sentimental items and the art and craft supplies. 

I've avoided going through the art and craft supplies up until this point because I figured that everything in there was important and useful and so there would be no point in going through it all unnecessarily. I mean really, who's heard of an artist minimizing their art supplies? It just doesn't happen does it? Artist's are known to be messy and have large collections of books and supplies, it's in their nature right? Well, that's what I thought so the idea of sorting through this stuff was pushed to the back of my mind and I tried to ignore the quiet little voice that said "Oi, wait a minute!"

That was, until a couple of weeks ago when I finally took a good look around our lounge/art space and realized that all of the 'clutter' in the room wasn't regular household clutter. It was art and hobby supplies and some of it hadn't been used in years. It was taking up valuable work and storage space so something had to be done.

• I had two shelves in my bookcase filled with painting, art, photography and cross-stitch patterns and computing books. Also my finished journals.
• I had loads of cross-stitch supplies. Spare material, tons of threads in plastic boxes with a bag to fit them in, bags for 'current' projects and the threads for them, and loads of finished designs waiting to be framed on one shelf.
• I had acrylic paints, gesso, brushes, spare canvases and texture paste on another shelf.
• Watercolor paints in tubes and pans, brushes, watercolor paper, spare journals, and watercolor pencils on another shelf.
• Scrapbooking papers, assorted 3D embellishments, buttons, old postage stamps, old magazines, assorted paper for mixed media in various shapes, sizes and textures, wire, solder, tools, ink and stamps, lettering stencils, felt tip pens, gel pens, colored pencils, art pencils, charcoal, various tech pens, spray fixative, carving tools, lino pieces, picture frames, eyelet kit, packs of unopened playing cards for making ATCs, compass set, plastic triangles, flexi-curve, knives and cutting board and lots of other misc stuff.
• 2 cameras, film and digital and various bits to go with them, tripod etc.
• Lastly there is the computer side of things. The computer, scanner and printer, printer paper and also the drawing tablet etc.

Yikes! No wonder I felt like I was making no progress in cleaning up, I was ignoring a huge amount of stuff!

Then came the tricky part, what to keep and what to get rid of? I decided to start with the easy decisions first. All of my cross-stitch stuff hadn't been used in about 3 years and I have no plans to go back to it again. So I rang my sister-in-law and asked if she would like it, she has three daughters and said yes. Starting out in a new hobby is always expensive so if you can share what you have with family and friends it works out great all round.

• Never dump your unwanted supplies on people without asking first though. There's nothing worse than having a lot of stuff dumped on you when you don't actually need or want it. Always ask first.

Next came the photography stuff. This was easy as I got rid of a lot of spare bags and things when I sold my SLR a couple of years ago. I mostly use my Canon G11 now and occasionally my film SLR. I went through my photography books and pruned down to four favorites.

The computer stuff just required a tidy up of the printer trolley and photo paper and a quick dust around the rest. I sorted out a shelf on the trolley for the graphics tablet and spare drives etc. I only had one book on Photoshop and decided to keep it.

There ends the easy part. 

The art supplies and books are going to be much more difficult and I'm going to save that job for another day. I first need to decide what kind of art I like doing the most and what equipment I need to keep for that. I tend to work smaller now with only the occasional larger canvas. I'm also doing more with watercolor but I still like my acrylics so I have some soul searching to do that will ultimately help me decide what to keep.Wish me luck :)

Have a great week :)