... and then more brooches!
Last night I carried on working on the little batches I began the day before, and although I've only finished one complete badge I have lots nearly finished (just needing their pinbacks & stitching together) and lining them all up makes me feel very satisfied:
In other news, I've managed a full month of
my project to give something away every day in the run-up to Christmas. None of it has actually been given away yet - it's all in boxes in the spare room waiting to go to charity shops, a charity book sale, and friends & family - but the big pile I have accumulated is incredible (terrible photos, sorry!!)
Some days I have got rid of more than one thing as I had a mini-clearout that day or added, say, two t-shirts to the pile that day, but every single day since the end of October I have found something in my house which I do not need & which can now go to a better home. It's really great planning things to give away instead of just buying stuff as one normally does at this time of year, and I do love to declutter.
The second month will definitely be harder than the first, but as someone who hoards endlessly "just in case" I might want something in the future I think it will be a very useful experience! I would definitely recommend a month of it - perhaps give away 24 things every December as an alternative way of celebrating Advent? I am rather tempted to add this to my Christmas traditions!
Thinking of de-cluttering,
way back in April I put most of the contents of my wardrobe away to test if I ever actually wore it... and now here we are about to start December and I still have two and a bit suitcases of clothing under my bed! Some things have gone back into my wardrobe (and are now worn all the time), some have been given away as the months have passed and several are in a kind of limbo state where I'm giving them a trial run in my wardrobe before deciding whether or not to get rid.
I've also been trying not to buy new clothes, but I have rather failed at this - especially yesterday when I bought 4 totally crazy things from a charity shop on my way to the Post Office! This is the pile of new stuff I've aquired since April:
Two £2 skirts (one worn, one not yet), one orange cardigan from a free stuff party (now a wardrobe staple, FREE), one fancy Zara dress from a charity shop worn to many garden parties in the summer (£5), one crazy 70s velvet skirt bought yesterday for work (where it is COLD; £7), one slightly mental green knitted jacket that I might be giving straight back to charity in the next few weeks! (£5), 1 toasty warm orange jumper (£1.50), 1 summer wrap dress from my mother-in-law's wardrobe (FREE), 1 mustard yellow cord skirt bought yesterday (what do I wear mustard yellow with, exactly?; £4) and the only thing I've bought new: an excellent
scarygoround t-shirt (£9.50).
I guess that's not too bad for almost 8 months, is it? We will turn a blind eye to all the bags and jewellery I've bought from Etsy in that time and say Hurrah! :)
I had an impromptu "brainstorming" session one evening this week, trying out a few ideas for crafty projects and covering the coffee table with felt, buttons, and hastily scribbled patterns in the process. Then at the end of the evening, everything got tidied away on an upturned tin lid to come back to another day (hopefully soon!).
EDIT: don't worry, I don't throw my scraps away! I use the larger pieces to make covered buttons and to make spotty pincushions, and the smallest bits become pincushion stuffing :)
... lots of fun to wear, but a bit boring to sew (black and brown are not the most exciting colours).
Those will become brooches like this one, and maybe a hairband or two? (what do you think?)
... I've not finished all that much, but I've been cutting out bits of this and sewing bits of that and keeping myself quietly entertained in the process.
I finished a batch of ginger moustache disguises, worked on some more battenburg pincushions, finished the last of the tree brooches, and beaded a few poppies destined to be hairbands. It's always nice to finish things and I always have things lying around that need to be finished! :)
... that's the large size, filled with things "ready to photograph" (photographing things being one of my crafty tasks yesterday, along with finishing off a few odds and ends of sewing). The medium size is currently "photographed and ready to list" and then the small one contains all the designs that I'm about to run out of & need to restock asap (this tin is far too full for my liking at the moment!).
More lions, lots of penguins and making a start on lots of new button brooches - trying to make use of all the lovely buttons I've hoarded over the years! The button butterflies will be made in more colours, and I'm tempted by the idea of button moths too (in lovely browns and creams) ... and the little groups of buttons are the start of a whole series of things using abstract shapes (simple shapes, bold colours, one of a kind), it will be nice to play around with colour a little. Colour is just the best thing (check this article out).
Primroses (the small ones are prototypes you may have spotted on the blog a while ago), Pansies and in-progress Forget-Me-Nots. The latter are supposed to have little yellow beaded centres but the yellow beads I acquired by cannibalising an old necklace are too tiny and my local haberdashers don't have any yellow seed beads. Foiled!
In other news, I've managed a full month of my project to give something away every day in the run-up to Christmas. None of it has actually been given away yet - it's all in boxes in the spare room waiting to go to charity shops, a charity book sale, and friends & family - but the big pile I have accumulated is incredible (terrible photos, sorry!!)
Some days I have got rid of more than one thing as I had a mini-clearout that day or added, say, two t-shirts to the pile that day, but every single day since the end of October I have found something in my house which I do not need & which can now go to a better home. It's really great planning things to give away instead of just buying stuff as one normally does at this time of year, and I do love to declutter.
Two £2 skirts (one worn, one not yet), one orange cardigan from a free stuff party (now a wardrobe staple, FREE), one fancy Zara dress from a charity shop worn to many garden parties in the summer (£5), one crazy 70s velvet skirt bought yesterday for work (where it is COLD; £7), one slightly mental green knitted jacket that I might be giving straight back to charity in the next few weeks! (£5), 1 toasty warm orange jumper (£1.50), 1 summer wrap dress from my mother-in-law's wardrobe (FREE), 1 mustard yellow cord skirt bought yesterday (what do I wear mustard yellow with, exactly?; £4) and the only thing I've bought new: an excellent scarygoround t-shirt (£9.50).
