Stripes

Lately all the family has been involved in a major decluttering. With the spring we all felt the urge to simplify, to get rid of 'things' filling our house and stealing our space and time. The good thing is that I didn't forced anybody, I started and all the children followed along. It has been really freeing. We are home and you can always hear someone saying '' ... do we really need this !? ... and you know something will go either on the trash, or in the 'sale' bag, or in charity bag. The only thing I was a bit concerned were all the clothing stuff. Something is too old or stained or damaged to sale or give away, but I always felt guilty to simply throw it. So one day I thought to start reducing those items in stripes and making balls to crochet or knit, but the reality is that I have a quite big stash of yarns and I knew right away that probably I would never choose them over wool or cotton for my projects ... and an idea started taking shape in my mind ... what about baskets and bowl and pot-holders ? But not knitted or crocheted, somethin that is new to me ... so my adventure in sewing baskets started and now I'm addicted ! I love striping down well worn and loved clothes, choosing nice colours and sewing and sewing and stopping and marveling at the beauty that comes out of it . The only downside is that my hands and fingers right now are quite sore but so worth it ! I'm replacing plastic ones with the newly handmade, saving some for making presents and I will sell the others (more details about this later on ). And of course I love teasing my kids a bit ... when they worriedly ask me 'but the dark shirt you just striped wasn't my favourite black one  isn't it ? '' ... well I always answer ... ''who knows ? Did you leave it around ? Because I don't come and pick clothes from your closet ... '' eheheheh (mischief mama face here ).
Before showing few pics of my lovely baskets I wanted to wish all the fellow moms reading my blog
Happy Mother's day to all of you !!!

Decluttering, or the room of doom

We all have one. It may not be an entire room, it can be a closet, or a cabinet or a table ... but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Our room of doom is our least favourite in the house. Believe it or not we don't live in a big house considering we're seven and we homeschool, so here we are day in and day out all day long, but this room facing west with no stove in use ( the one in there has some problem ) for many months it's just too dark and cold to spend time in there. So from time to time I try to organize it, but then something happens and we're back again, just piling stuff in there. But with the beginning of the new year I felt the urge to de-lazy myself and declutter the house and of course this was the place to start.
So, in shame, I'm going to show you how the room looked at the beginning of january ....

Aaaaaaaaaaargh ! At this point I was almost sure I wanted to simply lock the room and pretend it didn't exist. But I didn't give up and everyday I spent hours every afternoon ( with the help of Jimmy and Gaia ) just sorting things : keep, give away, throw. I filled countless bags of trash, three big boxes of stuff to give away and moved basically every furniture in the room to find the right spot for everything.

Here how the room lookd halfway...

Much much better isn't it ? You see the last picture ? Over the unused wood stove I put all of our looms.

No kidding, I think we have around 15 different looms ! Bigger smaller, round, squared rectangular for beads ... now it looks like an obsession to me ! :) And the craziest thing is that I am the one really obsessed but hardly ever have the time to start, let alone finish, any project. Well when I'll be a lovely old lady I will spend my time just weaving on my looms ;)

But well, fast forward to this morning....

Incredible isn't it ? There's still some stuff around but now we can actually use the room ! Here the three middle kids were working on some english worksheet ( from esl-kids.com ) aftern months of wild unschooling they asked me for some esl work and some table time, so our newest room is just perfect for the task. And Jimmy ?

Jimmy has his own corner, with his table and his basket full of art supplies and a nice black\white board. When the older kids after breakfast move from the kitchen to the 'craft room' he starts cheering in happiness ' we're going to write with the pen, we're going to write with the pen !!! ' so he sits at his table, with pen and paper and writes . From time to time he calls me '' Mom, I am here writing'' and I sit beside him for a while showing my appreciation for his work.

A decluttering story with a happy ending :)

p.s. Caught in the decluttering fever, i emptied a nice basket and i made a winter&wool basket, where I put my hats, gloves and scarves so that I don't have to look after them everytime I need to get out ...

I wish you some happy decluttering yourself !!