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Saturday, June 07, 2008

just in case

so back to the picnic and back to the questions. what if i need it some day for a super cool craft project?

ah, the what if . . . ah, the super cool craft project. the what if i need it someday people are certainly a category of clients i see. we all suffer from a touch of the what if. those with the worst cases end up with their preparations for what might happen impeding what is happening in their lives right now. it's groovy, i know but how can you make space for new things to come in to your life when so much is already there?

one way to begin to tackle the problem is to set some sort of time limit - one month, six months, a year - and ask yourself whether or not you've had reason to use the item within the time frame. now i know your answer might be "no, but i still might. what if . . . " give it away. in the unlikely event that you actually do need the item again, you can get it. you are choosing your space over your stuff.

now craft supplies are a whole other ball of wax (or ball of yarn and brick of wax as the case may be). it's easy for a crafty beaver (my all time favorite reality tv show team name - joan lunden, 2005) to surround him or herself with all manner of supplies for all manner of crafts. i myself once had nearly a whole closet full of random pieces and parts and yarn balls and foam squares waiting for genius. in my case, it worked because i had the space. when i moved in with my now husband, i had to make some choices . . . alas, i figured out how much space in the new house could be reserved for "what if craft supplies" and the rest had to go - donated to a very happy first grade teacher. the truth was that when i was itching to do a project, i never had exactly right stuff anyway so i'd go buy what i needed for the project and then keep the leftovers just in case. just in case what? just in case i ever needed an L shaped piece of cheap batting?

and that is the key - decide how much space you have in your house to devote to crafts and fill it up. when it's full, you're done. from there, something has got to go for something new to come in. this afternoon i came upon the craft organizer pictured above. the different compartments look like they might accommodate a variety of crafty endeavors and the barely visible little pockets on the side could hold some small tools. it takes great advantage of vertical space too. so that if you've decided that you have a foot of closet rod to devote to crafts, this might be a good way to do it. check it out at kangaroomstorage.com (they also sell it for purse storage.)

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