This year, in an effort to advance my "tidying up,"  I decided to sort out and streamline my boxes of Christmas craft things.  

I used to make some new Christmas decorations every year, so I had a large collection of miscellaneous Christmas craft items stashed away in various boxes. I dumped (almost) everything in one box to see what I had all at once and yes that is a single ice skate.

So I sorted and this is what I ended up with.

Being a thrifty soul, I have always saved Christmas ribbons from year to year. Truth be told, I still had some from when my oldest (now 18) was a toddler. I  decided  this was the year I was going to get rid of some of it. After all the Christmas presents had been unwrapped, I gathered up all the ribbon into a pile to see which ones could finally be put to rest.

Problem was, some of them were still to nice to just throw away. What to do?  Then I had an idea! I would make some of the ribbons into ribbon flowers.  

​I got out my "bible" of ribbon flower construction.      ​

I set about making an assortment of ribbon flowers.  My original idea was to save them for next Christmas and use them as package decorations, Somehow though once I had made them, that no longer seemed like the best idea.  Again, what to do? 

I finally came up with something that would use up not only my ribbon flowers but much of my miscellaneous Christmas craft supplies, too.  You guessed it: a wreath!

Now I have fewer boxes of miscellaneous Christmas stuff and a nice new decoration.  I think I will keep it up for a while after the rest of the Christmas things are put away.

Have a fun day!
​Cynthia

Rug hooking is both an art and a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp. The loops are pulled through the backing material by using a crochet-type hook mounted in a handle (usually wood) for leverage. Wikipedia

This past summer I hurt my back working in the garden so I had to take a little break from yard work.  Since I always like to be doing something, I pulled out a project I had started a few years ago.  I had packed this project away when we painted the family room and as we all know, when a project gets packed away, it often never resurfaces.  

The project came about originally because I wanted to find something to do with all of the scrap fabric my little business generates.  When I get 
t shirts and other knits to use for my dresses, after I wash them I cut off the seams.  I decided to try to do something with all these strips of fabric. As you can see, there are quite a lot of them.

 My first idea was to crochet a rug but that proved unworkable.  The strips were to short and joining them was tedious.  

I found a piece of needlepoint canvas in my stash of stuff so I decided to try rug hooking. I found the perfect inspiration from a book by one of my favorite fiber artists Kaffe Fassett from his book Glorious Interiors.

So far, I have completed almost a third of my project.  This time, I decided to leave the project out. It is kind of bulky so I set up a little table and chair in the family room to allow me to work on it a little at a time.

Here it is so far.  I'll let you know when I finish it which may not be for a while.  It is after all, a long term project.

Have a fun day!
Cynthia

While I have never aspired to be a minimalist, being most definitely a collector of "things," I have reached my limit for living with clutter.  

The reasons for this reaching of the limit are twofold.  First with my oldest off to college and my youngest now in high school I will be having more time to myself. The youngest can now get a bus to school so I don't have to drive her and we get up earlier (not quite used to that yet). This has added at least 2 more hours to my "alone time." Second, since I have more time, I want to focus more on growing my little business which means I need to be more organized.  Being organized is hard to do when there is to much clutter around.  It's hard to find what your looking for, hard to work when your work surface is covered with "stuff" and just generally frustrating! 

The problem  is how to declutter.  None of the strategies I tried in the past worked.  Even if I did clean up it never stayed that way. I definitely need a new approach which I hope I have found in the KonMari Method.  
I came across reference to this book: the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo.   The method is certainly different from anything I have tried.  In  a nut shell, her approach is to "tidy" by category not room by room and to do it all at once.  The key to success is discarding. According to Ms. Kondo the criteria for keeping something is if it "sparks joy." She maintains that by following her method, you can become tidy forever and ever. So, scary as this is, I have decided to take this journey to the realm of tidy forever and ever.

The KonMari Method has a specific order for how to declutter.  The fist category is clothing.  She recommends that you gather all of your clothes together and go through them all at once, so that is what I did.

Now I always considered my self pretty good at getting rid of clothing I don't use, either recycling it for my business or giving to charity, but when I piled it all up together I was surprised at how much was there. When I started going through it I was even more surprised!  I found things I didn't know I still had, things I had been looking for but couldn't find and some things that I don't even remember where they came from.

In the end, I ended up with 3 large bags of clothing, shoes and accessories for donation.

Now one other thing about clothing that is recommended in the book is to fold as much clothing as possible and there is even a specific method of folding.  At first I did not believe this would make a difference but it does and the result is definitely worth the effort. 

Now Ms. Kondo says that tidying is a special occasion and not to be undertaken every day.  The next category is books so that will take some courage which I will need to work up to.

Have a fun day!
Cynthia

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to  expect wonders." Henry David Thoreau

As you know, I am an avid gardener.  I am always looking for ways to expand my garden and add new plants.  One way I do this, of course, is by using seeds.  

 I have a lot of books on gardening and attempt to restrain myself from buying more.  I now usually take them out of the library and only purchase them if they are the kind of books I want to refer to often.  One book I bought recently is Plantiful by Kristin Green.

This book is packed with information about plants that grow easily from seeds as well as other types of plants that are good spreaders.  It also contains a lot of advise about how to control the bounty. 

Now, if you are going to start saving seed, it is helpful to have little envelopes to keep them in.  Check out my DIY page for an easy way to make those little envelopes.

Have a fun day!
Cynthia
 

"I'm gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket" Macklemore

April is my favorite month for thrifting.  In my area, it seems to be the month for Rummage Sales.  Must have something to do with spring cleaning,  Although October is also popular, the spring ones are the best.  I guess it's  because people have all winter to figure out what they want to get rid of.

There are two church rummage sales that are my favorites and I attend them every year.  For me, it is one of the main sources of fabrics for my little business. There are, mountains of clothing plus linens and also fabric yardage to be had.

I often have to go 3 separate times because there is so much piled up that you can't get to the bottom layer.  Plus at the end there is usually the bag hour where you pay one price for as much as you can stuff into a paper grocery bag. 

No doubt about it, there are bargains to be had!  At this sale I spent $29 and got 43 assorted garments, 3 table clothes, some fabric, a bag of buttons and a scissor.  All of which I can use to create my dresses and aprons.

It is good that these sales provide places where people who need to can purchase clothing more cheaply and most of the money generated goes to charitable sources. There is, however, a disturbing aspect to this phenomenon.  Why do we buy so much clothing in the first place that we have to give this much of it away?  Some of the clothing at these sales is brand new, still with tags on!  

Much has been written lately on the high cost of our compulsive shopping for clothing and its consequences. If you are interested in this topic, I would like to recommend a truly eye opening book:  Overdressed The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline.  This book contains statistics about clothes shopping that will astound you.  I believe it will change the way you look at your wardrobe.  It did for me.

Have a fun day!
Cynthia

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever." Keri Russell


January is the month of change. 

 It is the start of a new year and many people, myself included, start by making resolutions.  More often than not those resolutions don't last.  I know this from personal experience!  I have made many of the same resolutions for years and though I start out strong, my resolve seems to fade away distressingly soon.   


I have often wondered why this is.  In my search for an answer and perhaps some guidance on how to remedy this situation, I have read a number  book about human behavior.  While these books are interesting and do provide insight into why we do what we do, they do not really give much guidance into how to change what we do.  


This brings me to the whole point of this post.  I have found a book, which I want to tell you about, that does give guidance on how to make lasting changes in you life.  The book is Small Move, Big Change:  Using Mircoresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently by Caroline L. Arnold.  


In her book, Ms. Arnold makes the point that most of our resolutions are framed in terms of being something different: be organized, be on time, be thin, be whatever. Or they are vague: lose 10 pounds by summer, get out of debt, get more exercise etc.  Her main insight I think is not to make resolutions to be something else, but to make resolutions to do something different.  She calls these actions Microresolutions because the focus is on doing small, specific changes to your behavior which will ultimately result in permanent change.  She gives a complete set of guidelines with many examples, some from her own life. She is not a self help guru, but a woman with a successful career and a family.


I highly recommend this book if you, like me, are looking for a way to make lasting changes in your life.


Have a fun day!
Cynthia