Creating space, creating a habit

I've been decluttering my craftroom.  I still have a little more to go, including a box of stuff on the floor that I can't seem to find places for, and some things to take to school. I'm giving away some fabric and I've sorted through my scrapbooking things. But I still have a room packed full of things.

During last year I found this little 2-seater sofa at an op shop, and it changed everything about the room. But until now I had no time to really make it all work. 

Originally, I had these cute vintage velvet wingchairs in my craftroom. I loved the look of these chairs, they were a bargain, were in good condition and had just the vintage vibe I wanted. 

This is how I had the sitting area of my craft room set up originally

(on the other side of the room is my desk and most of my craft supplies) 

... and then I rearranged when we inherited this lovely leadlight cabinet.

But the trouble was that the chairs only looked cute. They didn't feel so great. When I sat on them I felt both constricted by the arms and wobbly on the seat cushion. My great plans of sitting daily to read the bible and pray on these chairs came to nothing. We sat on them on Friday nights for date night, and the rest of them time they just held piles of stuff, and I wondered why I didn't sit on them more. 

Then came the sofa.

Not vintage. Not the best colour. But comfortable.

A real game-changer.

And now I get to my new habit:

Each night I light this little candle

I open my little pencil case (a gift from a Korean student) and take out a pen.

(I keep the matches in there, also)

I open my bible

And my day-to-a-page diary (Aldi)

and I get reading and writing and praying.

You see, when I was younger I read my bible everyday, but as I got older, I found it hard to make the time.  This year I've discovered a few other things about me:

A lighted candle helps to remind me to stay and read and think, not to jump up and do something else. It makes the time a bit special (and smells amazing, the nicest vanilla candle I ever met ;)

A diary with pretty pages, smooth paper and the perfect sized page and just one page seems doable, compared to my old burnout style of writing pages and pages in a journal one day and not touching it again for months.

It helps to have a colourful bible and pencil case that coordinate, because I'm just that kind of girl.

A reading plan from my minister for our church to read Matthew 14-28 in the month of January has really helped. Especially when I recoloured it and made it pretty to match my diary ;)

I have a couple, but just a couple, of other reading and resource books in the pile for when I have extra time.  I plan to re-read the Jesus Storybook Bible again soon, I just love it, and it's not only for kids.

The other thing I've done is moved some suitcases which were piled up in the centre of the room. They were handy for storage and putting things on when I'm sitting at my desk, but not worth it in the end because of the cramped feeling they gave me. I also had a nest of tables in here, which felt rickety and not quite right. Now I manage with the little table attached to the standard lamp. And in case you're worried, I still have the olive velvet wingchairs, one in the craftroom next to the sofa, and one in the living room. And I still have some furniture from this room and elsewhere that I need to find space for, hmmm.

I'm so pleased that I was able to use this holiday time to manage the space and feel of this room, and to finally use it to accomplish one of my original aims of this room - to have a quiet space to sit and read and pray each day.

Thoughts on a clear surface

For a brief moment one day last week,

our dining table was tidy.

Such a rare occurence that the camera 

had to come out to record it.

I guess I should appreciate that piles

on the table often means good things are going on,

and going on here, rather than who-knows-where,

but right now I could do with 

the serenity of a clear surface a lot more often,

and not just when we are expecting a visitor.

To me, a clear surface offers possibilities.

Possible art.

Possible sewing.

Possible cups of tea with a neighbour.

Possible writing of plans, big or small.

Possible dinner guests.

Possible bible reading.

Possible learning & notetaking.

Possible candlelit dinners.

Possible clear thinking.

One of my aims for the year is to keep

the dining table and kitchen bench

as uncluttered as possible.

(I really like this idea )

even if two teenage girls have other ideas.

And then I'll see where the possibilities 

take me.

The Last Day of This:

Today is the last day before 

we move the girls 

and their things upstairs 

to their new rooms on the weekend.

And hopefully the last day of having things piled up around the house,

even in our bedroom.

The last day of having my craft desk in the dining area

closely packed in with other things

the last day of dining surrounded by too much furniture

the last day of looking at the girls' messy school stuff at meals.

And this, my friends, is why we renovated in the first place.

So much stuff, so little space.

So little room to get in and make the bed.

This will become my craft room :-)

Kitchen clutter comes and goes  on a daily basis,, but I hope  

that the kitchen can improve with the new arrangements too.

I've already been able to make some changes inside the cupboards 

which make cooking easier.

(The boxes have only appeared here today and yesterday 

as I start to unpack stuff.)

One day we might even be able to sit on those bar stools ....

The last day of a cluttered enclosed living space

The last day of chaos in the back of the living room
(although some of this chaos might stick around 

till we completely finish painting)

Living room looking back to the dining area

The study is piled up to the ceiling on two sides.

This should improve too.

And when I teach piano twice a week I won't have to 

hurriedly move all this stuff out of the room

so we can reach the piano:

Even the hall bookcase will lose a lot of its clutter:

So you can see why I'm just a tad excited!

This extension of two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs

will have massive and positive consequences for downstairs too!

Now we just have to wait another 24 hours or so before the fun begins!

Stay tuned for the "after" photos ....

Watch this space ...

On Saturday we rearranged furniture to fit in something new I've bought on ebay

(with a little help from a friend :-)

The cute pink bookcase (bought secondhand last year)

is now on the other side of the dresser.

I forgot to take a "before" photo but you can see how crowded our dining area is.

Girls' school books, craft equipment,

copious amounts of Smiggle and other cute items ...

.... one monkey ...

and can you spot a girl amongst the mess?

One day this area will be much more serene with a table and chairs,

a dresser, and not much more, I'm hoping!

Our building plans have finally gone to council, so things are progressing!

But this corner of our home will get much worse I fear, before it gets better!

In the meantime I am enjoying the luxury of an empty corner

... while it lasts.

Blackboard Menu

This is something I never got around to posting last year.

With all the blackboards around in blogland kitchens it was inevitable that I would want one too!

I was hoping to splurge and get a Stampin' Up! decor vinyl stick on blackboard, but the decor elements range hasn't come to Australia, as I hoped.

So I went to my local $2 shop to see what they had.

And there was the perfect blackboard for inside my pantry!

For just $5.99

No more asking "What's for dinner?"

The girls can just check inside the pantry door.

(And I added the word "yum!" to help work on their attitude when

pizza or burritos are not on the menu)

Ribbon Organization

Last week, when I showed you my lovely braids and things from Linda, I got carried away and reorganized all my braids and laces - so much fun!

I cut acid-free card (from Creative Memories page packs) into strips about 4 inches wide and wrapped the braids and laces around them. It took ages but I was watching Emma (the Kate Beckinsale version) at the time so it didn't seem so bad! I secured them with Scotch tape, also acid-free.

Then I placed them back into the plastic container they had been in, and oh what a difference - before they were squashed into ziploc bags and I never used them.


Now I feel like I have a little haberdashery shop in my craft cupboard - woohoo! I will definitely be using them now I can see exactly what I have.

As for my ribbons, for about the last year I have kept my rolls of ribbons in this old picnic basket I found at council clean-up a few years ago.

They fit perfectly and I love it!

I keep the basket on top of a shelf, or on a little table near my craft desk.

I keep my Christmas ribbons in a lovely box from Jacqui but you'll have to wait till Christmastime to see that!

Bits and Pieces

This is a strange but good time of year. We are mostly at home, except for some shopping here and there, church and a swim yesterday, but otherwise just at home. Reading, watching TV, playing, organising, gardening. We feel insular, and even more introvert than usual. We want to keep the world out for as long as we can. But in 2 days Steve will go back to work and we will settle into a normal school holiday routine, where daddy goes to work and mummy and the girls do stuff.

In the meantime, I've been trying to declutter and lighten up. The photo above shows my latest change to my craft table - I vacated a drawer and put in these mini drawers next to each other to hold various embellishments and tools. So far it's working really well.

Emily and I hung out in Borders for a couple of hours on Saturday (a Mummy-Daughter outing) and we bought this book of stencils which we girls have all been using.

This was my first go with it:


Some of the fonts are pretty fun. Nothing we haven't got as a font on the computer, but sometimes you just need to do it by hand! Also as well as the fonts are some cute little graphics. Laura has been adding elephants to everything.

Last week I did a lot of scrapbooking, about 17 pages in 2 days. This is one of my favourites:

I'm pleased how it turned out. At first the photos looked so blah with lots of grey curtain and then the honey-coloured stage and walls, but once I found the floral paper suddenly the colours of the costumes bounced out - one of the things I love about scrapbooking.

And lastly, this is the adorable drawing Emily did for us for Christmas. She secretly worked on it for a few days and it's pretty darn cute. We love it.

Organised ... sort of

This week I have so many little things on that I need to be super-organised. The usual load of piano students, leading bible study, housework, dinners, laundry and so on plus appointments, visitors, birthdays to plan, baking to do ...

I have pulled out my day planner, which I haven't used for months, and plotted my next 5 days in detail. So far so good, one day went to plan. And I even got up at 6.30am for a quiet time!

I am also reading this book. Months ago I wanted to buy it from Borders, then when I finally had a discount voucher and planned to get it, it was out of stock. So I was very happy to find it at the library the other day. It is making me rethink all our paperwork, especially having just done my tax return recently. If your family or office paperwork needs to flow a bit better I can definitely recommend it.

It's probably not such a good thing to be feeling busy and simultaneously thinking about long-term organising projects, but that's the way it seems to go with me. hmmm ... except when the girls are on holidays and we are doing nothing and I am thinking about organising then too ...

IKEA Fun

Today I made a quick excursion to Ikea. There were a few things I had planned to get, but as usual I ended up making a few unplanned purchases. But since I don't have the current catalogue (since going no-junk-mail this year) there were things that I hadn't seen before.

This was one of my favourite purchases, I think. A little battery-operated bird light. At the moment I am enjoying it more without the light on, I love the way it catches and holds the daylight.

These apple and cinnamon tealights are scenting our bedroom while still wrapped in the plastic. Yummy!


Wrapping paper in readiness for Christmas (and I couldn't resist the cherry-coloured paper with the big flowers. So cute)


And speaking of cute, these mini animals for 95c will make cute additions to baby presents.


Other purchases ... 2 cherry coloured cardboard boxes for papers, four 50c teatowels to wrap gifts in, or make into bags, and some fabric to cover an old armchair. I'll post some photos of that soon. A future project. And some secrets for the girls. Which I can't say because they read my blog.

This morning I started back at my Thursday craft group, I hadn't been for a term. It was good fun to be back, I have missed going. Today I made 3 felt birds and started on another decoration. So far I am feeling unusually organised for Christmas this year. I hope I can keep it up!

The Under-Sink Dungeon

After my success with The Craft Cupboard I was inspired to declutter and pretty up some other areas of our home. So last night (when I should have been putting groceries away or cooking dinner or supervising baths or something) I worked on the "dungeon" under the sink. This is one area that drives me crazy. I had recently started rolling my towels (used for wiping down the benches) rather than stacking, and that has helped. A simple swapping some items from one side to the other has helped work flow a little. But last night I labelled some jars.

Ah, the power of labelling. For about a year now we have used these vintage jars to store grocery bags and bags which contained fruit and veg, which we then use to line the bin or to collect the pulp from the juicer (it makes great compost - shame we don't garden just make compost LOL)

And for that year I have dug around in those nether regions next to the garbage bin (yuck) trying to figure out which bags are which ... until .... drumroll

Thanks to Microsoft Publisher and a little contact paper over the top I have the most gorgeous labels and life can go on again.

These jars have a story to them, too. They used to be my Nanna's cookie jars. They had green and yellow plastic lids (we tried using them as cookie jars but somehow it didn't work for us). Once I stayed at my Nanna's for a night or two with my cousin. My cousin often stayed there, but I hadn't stayed over much (or at all?). So when we felt a bit hungry and Nanna was off in another room my cousin suggested that we help ourselves to a cookie. I was quite anxious about taking a cookie without asking (I was probably about 6 at the time!) but my cousin assured me it was fine. Of course Nanna caught us with crumby mouths a few minutes later - and I was accused of stealing! I was mortified. It sticks in my memory so strongly, but I only realised recently that these are THOSE jars. The things we remember!

So that's the under-sink cupboard ... I wonder where the decluttering bug will strike next?

Organizing the craft cupboard

Last week I ordered and received these drawers from Best Craft Organizers. I had thought about them for so long, but not ordered them, as they are quite pricey especially after they travel to Australia. Finally I decided to bite the bullet and get a cube with 8 x 1" drawers, and I do not regret it.

Late on Friday afternoon (don't you love couriers when they say they will deliver between 9 and 5 and arrive at 4.50pm?) the girls and I juggled and fiddled and screwed and unscrewed till we got them together.

Each drawer has a "stopper" so that it won't fall out and spill the contents, but I found the stopper was in completely the wrong spot, meaning that I couldn't get out any stamps at the back! So Steve and I spent an excruciating hour carving off the little plastic bits with knives and files until now I am happy with them.

I love that the drawers are the exact height for the stamps and no space is wasted. I do have some stamps of various makes which are taller and had to put them into another drawer, but I wouldn't have fit them all into this unit anyway.

Every spare moment of the weekend I worked away and this is how many EMPTY not-so-space-efficient containers I now have! Woohoo! A big saving in space.