Clean up

Over the past few days/weeks I havee been going thru some of my craft magazines and seeing what's in them that still appeals to me.  There were patchwork ones, painting ones, scrapbook ones, general craft ones - around 280 of them all stored in a purpose built shelving unit by our back door.

They weren't in the way or taking up space, they just weren't being read or used.

So, yesterday I had finished going thru all of these and I took those I did not want to my local thrift store (along with 1 box of shoes and 3 bags of clothes that belonged to my youngest).

I now have around 70 magazines with projects in them that still inspire me to make them.  There's some quilts and wall hangings, some cloth dolls and some bears.  Each page is tagged (well dog eared actually) so I know which project caught my interest.

When doing this, the ones I kept were not projects I just liked, but rather ones I could see me actually making some time in the future.  The ones I just liked I ummed and ahhed over before deciding, yes I like them but not enough to make.

I sill have a whole bookcase full of magazines in my craft room to go thru and I am fairly certain there's a heap in the wardrobe too.  But they are for another time.

This is all part of my attempt to not be a hoarder, to get rid of unnecessary things, to simplify my life.

I had a friend come over on Sunday - on the table were the piles of mags waiting to go.  I asked her if she wanted to go thru them.  She has far more restraint than I do and said "No, I have a large pile myself and should probably do the same". 

I still have to go thru, ruthlessly I might add, a number of bags in front of the shelves in the craft room.  The idea of the shelves is that everything I have is on them, not on the floor in front of them.  And then there's in the wardrobe.  Now that school and kinder is back I at least have a suitable place to donate them to.  I just have to go thru it all..........