Arts and Crafts supplies

I was browsing through some craft blogs while lamenting to my mom about how hopeless I am at arts and crafts.I recalled, how as a child I used to struggle to get my origami correct in the craft class. 

Some people are just so crafty... I guess I am just too messy to be good at it.

Nevertheless, my mother brought out this Artist's case I have been holding on to since I was in school. It was a present from someone and I used it for a while but never to its full potential. So, for the past few years it was just gathering dust in some closet or the other. 

When I opened the case today, it wasn't a pretty sight. Half of the sketch-pens had dried up, the water colors were still brand new and the wax crayons had turned stinky. 

Now, for the sake of considering my mother's opinion on this Artist's case, I asked her if she wanted to hold on to this until she can pass it on to her future probable grandchildren. She crossed checked with her in  wasn't keen on holding on to this Artist's case for her future probably grandchildren

Army Green Shoes

I had a pair of military jungle green shoes which I wore pretty regularly for a few years.

The pair looked great with my dressing style back then. But now when I look at my wardrobe there is barely anything which would match with these shoes.

So I made the executive decision to donate them.

I used to love these shoes... but as they say... sometimes you just fall out of love.

Tossing Paper Piles - my baby steps

According to me, paper piles are the most difficult mess to tackle. The speed at which papers keep piling up... here and there... every possible corner of my room, closet, drawers, bags.... it's just impossible to keep up the pace and file them or toss them out.

So, as a new rule, I try to confront the paper clutter and toss out as many papers I can whenever I see a pile. I just pick up the obvious papers that can be tossed out right away.  Here's the first set of paper clutter which I managed to toss out:

I made a small list of my achievement:

1. A really old greeting card
2. Lyrics of the song - Something Stupid
3. A printout of some fonts
4. My examination hall tickets and their duplicates of 5 years. (Two of them were from the time I was in school!)
5. User Manual of an old TV which we no longer own

So when are you tackling your paper piles?

Getting Rid Of Old Food Magazines

Glamorous food shots on magazine covers can be deceptive. Very deceptive! 

I can't even remember the number of times I have saved up some random magazine just for the recipes featured in it.  I have had so many magazines lying around the house, hidden deep in chest of drawers... here and there... waiting to see the kitchen light! 

Unfortunately, most of us never cook any of these recipes. We just hoard recipes. Even when we hoard recipes, we are not diligent enough to cut the recipe and save it in a folder or a box. We keep the entire magazine! 

On second thoughts, Pinterest is the most delicious way for everyone to store their favorite recipes. In these digital times, why cut recipes when you can just pin them online?

So here I was with a few magazines I found lying around since 2010. Now, I don't wish to hold on to 40 pages of random advertorials for 2 pages of genuine recipes! So, I cut the recipes I think I really would tryout some day and for the rest of the magazine.... well it goes to the recycling centre!

Now, I still have some recipe cut outs.... 

Well... those are still a work in progress... will keep you posted on their developments too.

Till then, please share what's your system to keep food magazines from piling up? Do you transfer recipes to a file/binder or do you have an online collection on Pinterest?

Dumping Business Cards

I was cleaning an old office hand bag of mine and every zip in that purse had business cards. It was a big collection! My question is - What do you do with this big pile of business cards? If the business contact is important, I already have their contact information in my email or my smart phone or on Linkedin. Moreover, if an opportunity lies for me in those cards, I am not going to grab it if the cards are not sorted.

So to begin with, I decided to weed out the ones which I am positive I don't need anymore. 

So, if the card fit in any one of the following category, I threw it out:

1. The person had changed jobs, companies, cities or numbers
2. The person had shared more than 1 business card with me by mistake
3. A business card I accepted out of courtesy and I am sure I am never to do any business with them
4. The company on the business card has shut down
5. The card belonged to a beauty salon where I had a horrible experience (I found 2 such cards!)

So there I was with a bunch of visiting cards finding their way to my dust bin! 

Feels so good throwing out even the smallest of things that create mess. Trust me, my hand bag feels so much lighter now!

Cleaning the Playlist

My preference in music really depends on my mood and also on my current life scenario. My ups and the downs! I enjoy my music more, when I hear a song and every single word perfectly describes my situation. Sometimes music just says words that I am too afraid to admit.

The flip side to having this kind of taste is that after a while, when I have moved on in life, some of these songs don’t appeal to me anymore. At times, I relate them to some bad experiences or people or memories which I never want to visit again. So whenever such a songs plays on my itunes, I just skip it. So on an average, the ratio of songs I hear to the songs I skip on my itunes would be 1: 15 or 1:20. On second thoughts, I don’t even listen to 5% songs on my Ipod. I would rather listen to the radio and let the radio jockey decide which song I should listen to.

Now there is nothing wrong about having a good music collection. It’s just that I don’t want to be a music hoarder. I live in a house, which hosts a music collection of 3 generations in the form of records, cassettes, audio CDs and a lot of digital music on a desktop. The amazing part is that we don’t have a record player, or a music player which can play cassettes or CDs. The only place where music can be heard is through the computer or television! So basically, I have shelves and drawers full of music in forms which are not longer practical! Plus I have 5 GB of music on my laptop and some 15 GB on my desktop.

So I decided, today’s task is to clean up my music library on my laptop atleast. Digital decluterring!

It took me about 2 hours and listening to bits and pieces of hundreds of songs, I finally had a music collection which I would enjoy listening to. I managed to delete 235 songs and my music folder is now lighter by atleast 1 GB! Yay to me! It’s a time consuming boring process, but trust me, having space for new music is a much better feeling!

Declutter your itunes - my updated playlist! 

Messy Room Philosophy

On a lighter note, the real reason why my room is always messy .....

A pair less worn….

Marlyn Monroe once said something really wise about shoes and I quote, “Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.” I completely agree. If you read about Cinderella, you know what I am talking about – a pair of shoes can change your life completely and hitch you with the “perfect man”!!

If you have a great pair of shoes, you know you are going places. But what if you are stuck with a wrong pair??? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me.

Around 8 years ago (8 years is a rough vague estimate!)… I bought a pair of white and pink Nike Shoes. It wasn’t an impulse purchase but then I never really needed it either. At one point of time, I had sports shoes from almost all big brands – Reebok, Addidas, Sketchers and Nike. No, I wasn’t into any form of athletics…. Nor did I workout or go for walks… I was just a shoes curator!

Over the years, I managed to wear all these shoes… except the Nike pair. That pair was just like bad luck for me. Every single time I wore it, I tripped, fell on my face and twisted my ankle. They just didn’t feel right for me. So, even though they kept saying, “Just do it! Wear me”, all I really did was “Just ignore it!”

For 8 long years, I wore them almost never, cleaned it at times and changed its location in my shoe closet a lot of times… always trying to hide it in the back. But a few days ago, I attempted to wear them for my workout session. 2 seconds into them, I was uneasy. I removed them and finally made a decision. These shoes need to find a new owner. I couldn’t hold on to a pair any longer. It doesn’t make sense that it occupies so much space in my precious shoe closet. I had to donate it to someone who had smaller feet than me.

So finally, there I was. Bidding adieu to the imperfect pair and taking my first step towards decluttering and reducing my mess!