Ellie

Those of you who have read my blog before are familiar with Little Miss' Ellie. She drew a picture of her the other day on canvas. The canvas has been painted yellow for a while for something else I had in mind that never really panned out. The two purple ovals in Ellie's hands are balloons. Pretty good for a not yet 4 year old, don't you think?

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

~Pablo Picasso

Funny...

All these posts recently about mason jars and using them for storage, and look, Lisa Leonard is hosting a giveaway of her new 'my treasure' necklace. Go over and enter. You may be lucky enough to win.

photo by Lisa Leonard

"Luck is believing you're lucky."

Tennessee Williams

Tired...

I'm basically mentally drained tonight, so until tomorrow...

"All you need is love"

-John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Purging the Clutter Part III

Nothing too exciting today...more organization pictures.

I have come to realize that horizontal organization, such as this....

...is not as efficient as storing things vertically. It is much more convenient to have the ability to see everything, rather than having to dig through a drawer to find what you're looking for. Little Miss actually has access to anything on this bottom level of the bookshelf. These days she is mastering the art of confetti-making; this involves taking an entire sheet of scrapbook paper and cutting it up into tiny pieces.

Another whole shelf view of my lovely jar storage. I still have to label them all using tags. It will be fabulous.

"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”

— Edward de Bono

Click here and here for my two previous purging posts. Happy Tuesday!

Purging the Clutter Part II

In yesterday's post, I showed you a small glimpse into my creative space and today here's a bit more. I save jars and containers from everything. It's a problem, part of the reason I have so much clutter to organize. But, I'm using them to help with the clutter, so it's a good thing, right?

Here are some frosting containers and another container (from I don't know what) that I covered with scrapbook paper and use to store paint brushes and scissors.

...and jars, in all shapes and sizes, that store all sorts of supplies.

Check back tomorrow for more glimpses of the result of my purge.

I'm linking up with Heather today at Life Made Lovely Mondays.

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"We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once."

-- Calvin Coolidge

Purging the Clutter

When I daydream, I imagine my life without clutter....ha, ha, ha. I refer to myself as a recovering packrat, who sometimes falls off the wagon. I love things, old things, and I have a hard time saying no. But lately, I'm trying to purge and just say goodbye to things that really are just cluttering up this house and therefore clogging the brain too. I can never find things. Ask Victor (my husband)...I'm constantly looking for something. Usually I find what I'm looking for in a reasonable amount of time, but still, it's frustrating, and another sign that there is just too much stuff.

The other day Victor asked me for something to cut circles. "Yes, I have something. Now I just have to find it." Although I found it within 10 minutes, it caused me to purge and organize my space.

This week I'll be showing you some of the results...before a week goes by and it's a mess again.

I've had the old wooden wine box with the jars hanging on the wall for quite some time, but I reworked it and now it stores all my scrap pieces of ribbon, lace, and yarn much more efficiently. All the scraps are sorted by color, pleasing to the eye. I save all the jars from this sauce. Victor's parents had the box in their garage.

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

~Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993

Little Miss Invite

Little Miss' birthday is quickly approaching; she decided on an ice cream themed party this year. She cannot stop talking about her upcoming birthday. "Is it my birthday tomorrow, is it the end of March, Mommy?"

It's coming... too quickly as far as I'm concerned!

Here is her invite...with some pertinent information left out; I'm still not completely comfortable with putting it all out there.

P.S. I got my camera back today. It's working better than ever; I'm looking forward to using it a lot this weekend.

"Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time."

-Charles Schultz