Tis The Season

I’m big on setting goals and joining ‘alongs’ at the start of a new year. Not always so great at finishing them… but it’s the thought that counts, right??

This year I’m doing the Declutter Challenge run by Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts (website here; YouTube channel here). The goal is a decluttered and organized sewing room in 20-30 minutes a day for 21 days. 

Things got out of hand the last 3 months or so. I had a couple of big projects with Christmas deadlines, plus we tend to use my sewing room as a dumping ground when we’re cleaning/decorating for the holidays, on top of ‘messy’ being my comfort zone… and yeah, it’s time for a reboot.

We’ve had those black pots since the first year we were married…

I started two days early by clearing out the pots/pans/appliances I removed from the kitchen 1? 2?? years ago but held on to ‘just in case’ I changed my mind,

then moved the overflow photo books/boxes out of my craft room…

which led to organizing the old albums by year (in pretty new bins!),

clearing out the boxes of kids books ⬆️

and novels ⬆️ that shared the space,

and moving all the photo boxes/albums/supplies to one area so I can organize everything 

New storage boxes Marie got me at Michaels - on clearance!

and maybe, just maybe, have them not be scattered in (almost) every room in the house.

Today’s declutter prompt was ‘Is this garbage?’ plus clearing around the sewing machine so we could work on fun things during the challenge. I picked two areas to concentrate on - my ironing board ⬆️ and sewing tables (see second pic from top). 

When the 20 timer dinged, the ironing board was almost done (still need to clear off Jac’s art supplies from the end),

the tables were clear (not sure what I’m going to do with the old computer…)

and I’d found a pretty basket to hold all the supplies I keep around my machine. Still lots to do but I’m loving the progress!