Use It or Lose It: A Crafty Challenge for 2015

I've been doing lots of decluttering this year and I've found that one of the hardest things for me to clear out is the stash of random crafty stuff I've kept because "I might be able to make something with that sometime!"

So I've decided that in 2015 I need to either get on and actually make stuff with the supplies in my stash, or admit to myself that I'm never going to use them for anything and just get rid of them.

This will be a slow, ongoing process but I'm hoping to have lots of crafty fun along the way and (fingers crossed) a lot more space in my studio at the end of the year. I'm rather looking forward to the creative challenge of coming up with projects to make with my long-hoarded supplies and I will, of course, be blogging about my progress!

Thanks to taking some time off over Christmas, I've already made a start on my first de-stashing project: making lots of lavender bags.

I'd been keeping two huge bags of dried lavender (harvested from my mother's garden) which was waaaay more lavender than I thought I'd ever need but so lovely and scented and potentially useful that I'd not been able to bring myself to just (gasp!) throw it away.

So when my sister mentioned this Christmas that something she owned had been nibbled by moths, I offered to make her a big batch of lavender sachets to help keep the pesky creatures at bay. It's been a while since I made some lavender sachets to proect my own wardrobe so I'll also be making some for myself.

I'd planned on using some scrappy fabric like an old pillowcase to make the sachets. However, looking through my fabric stash I found an old dress my sister had made many many years ago and then given to me in case I wanted to use the fabric for something...

... it's been sitting untouched for about ten years, it belonged to the sister for whom I'm sewing the lavender sachets, and the print is a pattern of butterflies and moths. Perfect!

As well as using up some long-forgotten-about fabric and a big stash of dried lavender, I'm also using some odds and ends of ribbons (mostly the sort of loops I'd cut out of new dresses and kept because "they might be useful for making something!") to add to the smaller sachets so they can be hung on coathangers.

Three de-stashed birds with one crafty stone = an excellent start to the challenge!