Post-Christmas and pre-New Year's, I had the week off from work (yay higher ed schedule!). I had made a big list of projects to tackle around the house, and with a near-masochistic glint in my eye, I headed for the craft room. It was bad. Bad bad bad. That room had become a magnet for all kinds of crap. We had to put a baby gate in it (there's no door) because it literally was not safe for living things to be in there. I'm not going to share my before and after pictures here, because 1) they're horrific and 2) it's not actually a display of any kind of creativity or ingenuity that's improved the space. It was just good, old fashioned, putting on my grown-up pants, and cleaning. Like a grown-up.
It took me two days of near-constant work -- cleaning, sorting, organizing, labelling. I burst into tears in the middle of it all because I realized that I may or may not have some light hoarder tendencies that were definitely being indulged. All in all, I came up for air with six bags of garbage, six bags of supplies that went to Knack, and four bags to Goodwill. I posted lots of stuff for sale on a local Facebook tag sale group and on Craigslist.
Let it be known the rest of our house is still not back to normal after this project. But the feeling of buoyancy, lightness, pleasant emptiness that came after ditching all of that STUFF...ahhh. It feels. so. good. I'm proud of it. Kristie's proud of me for doing it. I can find whatever I'm looking for in there in like two minutes. Moving will be easier, when the time comes. And now Samson can go in the craft room again! Which honestly I think he's ambivalent about.
Anyway, sorting supplies into categories like throw away, donate, and keep made me think about what I really need. I've been trying to work on my relationship with "things" lately (and no, I haven't read this yet, but I've read what everybody's been writing about it and I mean that's kind of the same thing right) (just kidding I'm definitely going to buy it). All of a sudden I got, like, itchy about how many physical possessions we're tied to. It felt like they were weighing me down -- especially the things I don't use daily, or don't bring me joy.
The things that are left in my craft room are my winners. My favorites. They have been consciously chosen to keep. I wanted to share them with you, and hear what your favorites are too. (PS this was originally supposed to be like a 100-word post...ugh.)
Let me introduce you to my dream team! These are the craft and DIY supplies I try to always have around, and occasionally I run out of them and my life falls apart.
ModPodge: Good for literally anything. I use it most often for photo transfers like this. I almost never use "glossy" -- I prefer the finish of "matte."
Iron-on transfer sheets: I used to make a lot of stencils for clothes and fabric, but it got kind of tedious designing them, printing them, carving them out with an X-acto knife, ironing on with freezer paper, painting, and then letting it dry. Iron-on transfer sheets are soooo much easier. I think I'd have a lot more if I didn't forget approximately 40% of the time that you have to flip the image before printing.
Jute cord: It's cheap, and good for wrapping presents and hanging things.
White cotton fabric: Easy to transfer shit onto, or dye or marble or any of the other ways I want to experiment with fabric.
Gold spray paint: This might not show up very often in the DIYs I post here, but I can assure you it is basically all over my life. Most recently with getting all set up in a new office, I spraypainted a cheap tape dispenser gold and it looks like the most chic tape dispenser in the world. Also I made this for my desk.
*This post contains affiliate links
