dreamflower | 100 Things Number 4: Creativity and Clutter (Reply)

This post is somewhat lighter and more personal than my previous ones...

Creativity and Clutter

Creativity and Clutter

From the number of crafters and such on the

flylady comm, I am judging that I am not unique in having a clutter problem.

I was making great progress on my sewing/craft room last fall until I got sidetracked by some of my projects, using the dubious rationale that if I did those projects, then the materials for them would be used up and I'd have less to deal with. Of course, all it did was make things worse.

I do know how to organize my clutter. The problem lies in not getting sidetracked by the shiny.

Add to it the other problem of not being able to throw something away because you just know you can make something out of it someday and you multiply the difficulties.

For the person who concentrates on only one type of art or craft, it may be easier to organize. But I am one of those who cannot ever resist learning something new.

I am a calligrapher; I sew, both hand and machine; I knit, crochet and embroider; I sculpt with polymer clay; I paint in both watercolors and acrylics; I bead; I make wreaths; I make dolls and design their clothing. The truth is, I have seldom met a craft I have not tried at least once, and I have all the paraphenalia, materials, books and magazines to prove it.

And I write. You'd think writing would be less cluttery these days-- I mean, it's all on the computer, right? Well, yes I suppose, unless you count all the notebooks I use when I am away from my computer and all the print-outs I've made of various things for various reasons, and all the stuff I wrote years ago that I can't bear to destroy or discard, and all the books I have to look things up in. Oh, and let's talk about the clutter IN the computer.

I'm self-taught as far as my computer skills go. They are pretty limited in a lot of ways. I've never got the knack of folders and files, so I have lots and lots of files with similar names: "temporary", "temp", "temp story" or "2012 B2MeM", "b2mem 12", "b2mem 2012" or "challenges", "challenge" "challenge temp", "chall". Watch me tear my hair out trying to find what I was working on more than a day or two ago! Someone once told me I could merge files into folders. My attempt to do that resulted in both files vanishing into some limbo or other.

If I ever win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes (I stand more chance of that than winning the lottery, as you have to actually buy a ticket to do that, whereas all I have to do with PCH is click a few links) I will pay some professional geek to come over and organize all those crazy files.

Why did I choose this particular topic for this particular day?

To take a break from ONE MORE TIME attempting to get a rein on my sewing/craft room. My progress looks mighty small. I am going to use one of FlyLady's techniques and do a couple of "27 Fling Boogies" before I call it a day. I will grit my teeth and tell myself that if I haven't worked on something in more than a year, I'm unlikely to do so now. And I will throw out my paint that has dried up, and my scraps that are too small, and I will donate a bunch of stuff to the thrift store. And I won't look back.

Until six months from now when I decide to make something, and I realize that I really NEED one of those things I discarded, but now I have to buy more...

Or I suppose I could just blame it all on the cat. Yeah, that's it, the cat did it...