making good on my New Year's resolution...

...to purge, clean, and organize my craft space-- you know, that room that I could barely walk into a month ago, lol! I think it's well on its way to finally being organized and usable! I did a lot of purging to start: we have a 55-gallon recycle bin, and I probably filled it once, all by myself, with just paper and cardboard-- lots of it was scrapbooking layouts I had printed off the internet, old, old issues of scrapbooking magazines, and all sorts of cardboard boxes. After looking at it all, I realized most of it was really useless- I currently use the website Pinterest to save links to scrapbook layouts and websites I like, and most of the magazine information seemed extremely outdated (not to mention full of out-dated advertisements). So, off to the recycle bin it went! (At least 5 medium-sized boxes of random stuff went to Goodwill, as well: books, old dishes, etc., most of which I probably got at the thrift store to begin with.)

Goodwill books

Sad to say, some of the boxes I unpacked while doing this cleaning project had never been unpacked from when we moved into this house initially, over 3 years ago now. I guess that means I didn't really need the stuff inside them very bad, doesn't it?? (I did find some things I thought I'd lost, too, though, which was cool!)

assorted Goodwill stuff

The next step was to decide what crafting and scrapbook supplies I didn't want any more, and sort them out... I signed up for the local scrapbook store's spring 'garage sale' in April, where people bring in their scrapbooking and crafting supplies to sell, and get store credit for everything sold. It's a pretty well-attended event, so I hope to make a bit of money (store credit, technically), and pass some of my stuff along to someone else who will find them more useful than I did- things that no longer fit my style, or crafty things I bought intending to use them at some point, but never did. (I'm not the only one who does that, right?!? hopefully not, lol!)

scrapbook garage sale box #1

...things like old sets of rubber stamps (from back when I used to make stamped greeting cards, but I don't really do that very much anymore), rolls of decorative tape I don't really like (and know I won't use), some old bottles of glitter that I bought at the thrift store and never even used...

scrapbook garage sale box #2

...sheets of cardstock and patterned paper that I've had for years and finally decided to pass along to someone else who might use them (I mean, really- why did I ever think I'd use bright orange cardstock, anyway?!? and I know some of the patterned paper was bought back in Illinois, before we moved to AZ), stickers, assorted tags and scrapbooking embellishments...

scrapbook store garage sale books and magazines

...and a large number of more up-to-date scrapbooking magazines and craft how-to books. Hopefully shoppers at the the SB garage sale will like and buy my stuff, so I can get a decent amount of store credit for it (which I will then spend on buying new stuff, of course!! haha!).

I've also done some re-organizing in how my supplies are stored, which I'll show in my next post.  My end goal is that all this purging, cleaning, and re-organizing will allow me to actually create more scrapbook pages and cards! (It's not a very high bar to meet, considering that the last scrapbook page I created was made in May 2012, I think...) In all the time we've lived in this house, my space- and the supplies in it- just wasn't set up in the best way possible, so the only scrapbooking I actually did was when I attended a weekend scrapbooking retreat a couple times a year. I'd really like to do crafty things more often than that, so that means making my space here at home more useful! And finally, I think I'm on the way to doing just that!  (it's about time, right?!? lol!)

(And of course, there's the cat issue to consider as well: I'd really like to be able to keep the door to my craft room open sometimes when I'm not in there, which means things have to be cat-safe. If not, I'll end up finding erasers, paintbrushes, and other little things all over the house... or else they'll be lost forever under the refrigerator or stove.)