Apparently, March is "Craft Month" or some such thing.
Recently, I've stumbled upon a wealth of jewelry craft inspiration in the form of some new Bead/Jewelry bloggers. Reading and reviewing their blogs has really made me want to get my crafty butt into gear.
While EVERY month is a craft month to me, I want to really put forth the effort THIS month to be crafty or work on my craft room every day this month, even if for just a few minutes. I started yesterday.
After an incident with my kitchen oven (see
my Facebook page for more info), I pressed my luck and decided to bake/cure my polymer clay pieces (top of the page.) I have a persnickety craft-ONLY-designated toaster oven (it takes me FOREVER to get it to the right temperature and keep it there.) Really, it's a pain in the arse. Since I had some waiting time (while it was shuddering to the right temp and then while baking the beads), I started working on some organization in the craft room. [If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm ALWAYS working on getting the craft room organized.] As I started on these tasks, I made a few realizations:
- I have entirely TOO MUCH stuff in the craft room. Really, it's overwhelming.
- If I actually go through every bit of it, I might be able to find some items to part with. (via donating, freecycling, a yard sale, maybe even a giveaway here or something along those lines)
- Just BEING in the craft room to clean, might incite me to actually create more.
- Limiting the amount of stuff I have to use might mean I actually USE the items I have.
- Having a clean and clutter-free craft room might incite me to use the room more often.
- Using this method on the rest of the house too might not be a bad idea either.
The hardest part is being ruthless about what to get rid of and what to keep.
I'm only going to do this cleaning/organizing/purging in small increments of time, to keep myself motivated.
I started yesterday with my main craft table and then a side table. I only cleared off enough of the craft table to basically put down the polymer clay beads. But then I was ruthless on the side table. I had already started on it when I took this picture. It was MUCH worse than this.
I went through each container, bag, etc. to see what I have and want. I didn't go through the stacking container on the right side of the table. This contains my beading wire, thread, cord, hemp, etc. It does need a thorough cleaning as I haven't used hemp in YEARS for my designs, and I've got a TON of it. Plus, who know WHAT ELSE is lurking in those drawers. I just about filled a gallon-size ziplock with shrink plastic pieces, ugly jewelry, random loose beads, etc. It was tough getting rid of some of those items, but here was my result!
The picture's a little blurry, but you get the general idea. At some point, I'd like to find a better sorting method than those metal planters. They work for now though.
My next project is my bead stash. It'll probably be the hardest for me to purge. It needs to be done. I'm running out of space, yet I keep buying more. Tragic!! As well, it's hard to tell what I need in the mess of the chaos. The beads will take me the longest to go through, I'm sure. I'll just do a little at a time. Here's how the beads are stored now (under the table I just cleared.)
That's Asia, my craft room companion, on top of one of the fishing tackle boxes.
Wish me luck!!
For your patience with this post, here's some "Made Me Smile Monday" goodies for you:
