Deep cleaning sure takes a lot of work. I have been going through every bin and drawer, sorting, rearranging, recycling and getting rid of a few things. I haven’t gotten rid of much, really, I keep a pretty tight ship over here, but I have been stuffing miscellaneous items into the wrong drawers and bins for quite a while.
I have been thinking about what helps me feel organized. The main thing for me is, I don’t want to see too much visual clutter. If I continuously stuff items on top of bins, and do not clean up after an intense project, this is visual clutter. This does not mean that in the middle of a project that my workspace is pristine, not at all. When I am in the process of making a thing, my workbench and every surface around it is a total mess. It has to be this way. But! My goal is have all of my supplies, materials and tools easily accessible, so that when I am in the process of creating and exploring ideas, I don’t get tripped up by not being able to find particular stamp or stencil. Being organized also helps make clean up easier because everything has its place.
Last week, David and I were returning home from a walk about and we came across this Trofast (Ikea) wooden bin in someone’s trash. I already own 4 of these bins (with the drawers, not shown here), so we nabbed it and brought it home. I really like bins and boxes with lids. This feeds into my need for visual simplicity and also helps me define aspects of what visual clutter is: Visual clutter is the inability to properly shut a bin or drawer! If the bin is stuffed chock full? The lid tips? It drives me crazy.
I really like being able to grab a box, bin or drawer and be able to get what I need, then put it away. Salvaging the Trofast bin created the need to purchase the matching bins to go with it, So I packed my bags with sweaters and socks and (Oh, sorry. That is a different story– one of my favorite childhood stories), and walked over to Ikea to get a few items to complete this organizational extravaganza.
The items in these boxes got reorganized and put into the Trofast bins. Like items together, I put some items into ‘deep storage’, others got grouped by type (sewing items, fusible webbing, printed sacks (which I have fallen in love with for some reason), and painting items each got there own bin.
I am sorry this photo is blurry. But I think you might get the idea that this pegboard bin had a layer of dust and grime. Well? No longer. Dirt and dust has emotional weight in addition to visual. I emptied each bin, got out a toothbrush and scrubbed it clean.
Deb Lacativa once told me that keeping beads separated by color and type was akin to a bead prison! And while I still chuckle at this analogy, I was never able to make leeway in changing my perspective. I like things sorted by color, type, need and project. This bead prison 😎 holds items related to purse making, rivets, button release clips, bells, and embellishments. So why have a stuffed brass letter stencils in there, when they could be more easily accessed in my new painting area. This has been remedied but is an illustration of just how deeply I want to clean and organize. There really is no use in having supplies if you are unable to find and use them.
And, I think this is really important too, ‘It isn’t the supplies you own, but what you make with them’! For some reason this jar of Presist became precious to me and I put it aside, I remember thinking it was expensive stuff and that I needed to hold on to it for the right project. Well, I don’t know if you can tell but it is dried up. I had to throw it away. To add insult to injury, this product is being discontinued!
My organizational extravaganza is almost complete, When I am done, I will create a video and show you what is in each drawer and why I think it works well. In the meantime, perhaps you could encourage Mary Ann to get her sort on! Mary Ann posted to facebook that she hung pictures and unpacked 5 boxes, I want to see some photographs!