The Art of Living...Letting Go...Holding On

Three questions to ask yourself when in the act of de-cluttering from My Simpler Life.

1. Does it lift my energy when I think about it or look at it?
2. Do I absolutely love it?
3. Is it genuinely useful and do I use it?

These are difficult questions for collectors and crafters.

Larry is a book collector; I collect antique linen and lace and quilts.

And I am a renaissance woman: I enjoy working in fabric and fiber; quilting and sewing; small 4x6 fabric art and art journals; altered books; knitting; doll-making. So over the years I have amassed a formidable stash of materials, supplies, tools, and equipment.

The de-cluttering of my studio/playroom made me look objectively at my stash. If each object did not pass muster (lift my energy, absolutely love it, am using it), I let it go to someone who would love and use it.

The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

The studio is now more efficiently organized but if I were being totally truthful, I'd have to say that this effort was really just the first pass.

There is more work to be done and more letting go to experience.

When you let go of clutter . . . .

When you let go of clutter you free up space in your life for creativity. You un-block energy that is stuck under and behind the mounds of things. You make space in your life for the things you really love and truly want to have near you.

A few months ago, I pledged to de-clutter my home and pare down possessions. I wrote about it on this blog in October but I haven't updated the process.....until now.

I got to work cleaning my closet and drawers; I made donations of things I didn't need and wasn't using. Clothes that no longer fit and would probably never fit again went in the Good Will bags. My room was neater. I felt better and lighter.

Then I moved my efforts to my studio/playroom. And I will admit there was huge job of work waiting for me there. But undaunted by the task ahead, I went wading through the piles and stacks making decisions about what to keep and what to move along. The decisions got easier and easier. The more that went into the Good Will pile the easier it was to add more to the pile.


Here are some of the results:

This neat little stack of three-ring binders used to be row upon row of magazines taking space on bookcase shelves. Once I got to this phase of the 'de-cluttering' project I saw it for what it truly was: a
big,
heavy,
bulky,
mass
of paper that I wasn't using and couldn't efficiently use.

But it is no longer.

Now it is a nice, neat stack of projects and images that inspire me. They're slipped into sheet protectors and organized by project or type of craft.

Oh what a relief it is.

I moved, shuffled, cleaned, organized and made several trips to Goodwill with craft supplies.

One result is this nice neat wall of paints.

..... supplies.....

...... a knitting area .......

.... fabric .....

and pride of place for my Singer Featherweight sewing machine circa 1951.

(The Featherweight is sitting in front of one of my very first quilts.
I learned a lot about color on this project as you can see. )