Craft Supplies: What to Use or Cull?

I have too many craft supplies, of course. I need to either use the stuff up, sell, toss or otherwise cull this collection down A LOT.

I have been trying to think what I have to do/get rid of/cull next? And I don’t know. I have fabric at a seamstress currently to turn into \ throws. I don’t need more, those will do us year round, with the one my MIL made.

So, then what? I have pillow forms, fabric, beads, yarn, basketry material, and paper crafting supplies.

The obvious thing to use some of that up would be to do the knit the pillow covers project. The not so obvious thing is whether I have yarn in the right sort of colors/textures for the living room. That I do NOT know, I’ll have to look.

After that project and making myself a new hat. (Remember this? I decided to make myself another hat.) I have no idea how much yarn I’ll have left, how many pillow forms I’ll still, and what to do with what I DO?

I also have no ideas about the rest of it. I need to work harder to find projects or just decide to get rid of the stuff, in quantity!

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Okay I sorted. I have enough, with an additional skien or two, to make pillow covers. One or maybe two? We’ll see. I also seem to have enough to make another hat. After that? I have a bin full of yarn, most of it with no particular use in mind. The one exception is the rug which was being knit/crotched for the bathroom, the one that takes about an hour to get 1/4 of the way around and 1/4″ thick  per row. In other words? To make that rug takes a LARGE amount of time/effort, which is why it got dropped to begin with. I either need to ‘fess up and admit I won’t ever finish it OR I need to actually finish it. Storing the tools and supplies and 1/2 finished rug just is dumb!

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Found Time

It occurred to me that one thing I’m doing to be more efficient is using all those “little blocks” of time, while waiting for something:

• Waiting for the toaster to pop.
• Warming myself in front of the wood stove.
• Waiting for the microwave.
• In the bathroom.

I have started washing the few hand-wash items on the kitchen window sill, while I wait for the micro. What gets put on the window sill are items which will be ruined if washed with the other dishes: the wine glasses would break, the wood dough scraper would get soaked and ruined, the thermometer would get soaked and its electronics ruined. After use, they’re put on the window sill. And frequently, although I don’t mean to, I forget about them. These things are getting washed and put away, regularly now. Yay! One less set of FLOATING CLUTTER!

I don’t have a set thing to do while waiting for the toaster, yet. I tend to do whatever I see that I can do quickly. But it occurs to me that maybe I should use it as a time to wipe out the micro! The micro gets cleaned now on an as-needed basis. I’d like to be more regular and proactive than that. Cleaning it while the toaster works seems like a good plan.

Warming myself at the wood stove and in the bathroom I use the time for the same thing these days, that is, I grab a handful of papers which need sorting and go through them. This is slowly but surely, getting us through the boxes and boxes of papers we’ve had stored.

Do you use these little blocks of “found time” to clean or cull? What do you do?

 

More Culling, Electronic & Otherwise

Have to declutter. Along this line, I have been looking at my pins on pinterest.

I just looked at one and deleted it. Why? Because the link to the content I wanted got a 404 error on the website where the pin originated! If you’re so lazy that you can’t fix internal references, either on pinterest or on your own website, why would I want to read anything you had to say about organization?

That stuff counts people!

I also deleted a post where in order to read any content you either had to sign up for their emails or pay for it. If it’s not free, say so up front! I wouldn’t have pinned the front page if I’d known that to start with. Don’t waste my time! Also, I do NOT need more email coming into my inbox! If I read your content and it seems worthwhile, then maybe, I might sign up for your emails. Maybe.

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What this reminded me was that I need to set goals with the decluttering and cleaning. I’d forgotten about that idea, but it really helps.

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I have slowly but surely been doing a little of the seasonal/spring cleaning. I haven’t finished cleaning the doors/walls in the hall, but I have cleaned the bottom shelf and window in the laundry room, the shower curtains have been washed and reversed to their summer positions.

(Yes, there had been a photo here of a closet. But until I had a reason to scroll up from the bottom, I hadn’t noticed the naked female torso,crotch to neck, under the closet!) So much for images from upsplash. You folks will have to make do without images again for a while until I can find another source.

I took the salt and handwarmers out of the entry and discussed with DH how we need a “seasonal” shelf: insect repellant, sunscreen, hand warmers, pathway salt all need to be stored in one place. Whatever you need you grab.

I know where I’d like it to be: the coat closet shelf. Or maybe a decorative, lidded basket near the entry? (The salt container will be the determinate there; it’s the biggest piece.) Maybe under the entry bench?

DH took over the coat closet a few  years back with motorcycle gear. And although I’ve removed about 1/2 of it into 2 other locations, there still isn’t enough room to actually use it for something like this. Not to mention that the closet door frequently gets blocked with items going into/out of my office, sigh.

I suppose if I’m going to start decluttering, now. The first place I should start is that hallway. I will get access to the closet door, the last door I need to spring clean, so that job will be finished. And I can look at the closet for general house use vs. motorcycle stuff, again.

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DH’s lunch project is to hang the laundry rack. We bought a few years ago a rack  you can raise and lower from the ceiling to dry clothes. This is another way to save $, make use of what we already have, etc.

We also had a discussion about whether it’s too soon to put away the wood burning materials for the season. DH reminded me we were building fires still in June last year, so nothing got put away.

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I worked in my office some this morning. Took out the 3 covered enamel pots I store stacked one atop the other. I’d had yarn, etc. in them. That collection got culled. Some of it went in the trash, some of it is going to the swap shop, some of it is going to the flea market, and some of it is going back into my office!

I also pulled a metal file box out, filled with paperwork. I reused the file box to house the “this needs to go into the filing cabinet” papers and the receipts, etc. which it held are getting put into the new system for that.

Fewer pieces. Less stuff! More organization! Fewer expenses (laundry rack).

All good (except that image; THAT made me MAD)! I’m not against nudes, or even think the image was ugly or in particularly bad taste, but I feel broadsided by the fact that I should have vetted the image more. Even needing a more detailed vetting doesn’t bother me, it was the shock of NEEDING to do that which upset me!

So, I apologize if you got this post with the image and it offends you. It was completely unintentional!

Electronic Simplify

Back in January, I started deleting emails. I’ve been doing it ever since. I just went under 24,000 unread emails. Which, if you remember, it remarkable, because I had 80,000? I may still have 50,000, if you count all the mail boxes up, but the primary one is < 24,000 now.

Confused? See here.

I keep opting out of email lists I’ve been on for years and deleting the old unread emails. I do this every day these days.

I have no idea when this effort will be done, if ever!

Simplify

It just occurred to me that I need to do this with well everything, including the food I make!

Given the “menu plan” I came up with:

• M Double Veg.
• Tu Soup/Stew using bits & pieces LO
• W Second Veg.
• Th Egg
• F Double Meat
• Sa Sandwich
• Su Second Meat

I’ve been looking at recipes.

Also given that we’re trying to save $, the farm is starting the beginning of June AND I’ve decided I need to set aside some HM instant meals, I’ve been looking at what I might make:

Casseroles and Loaves meat and veg both.

Seasoned Ground Beef Make up a batch of the meat I use for meat loaves and make a batch of meat balls at the same time. Can be used with pasta, or in Albondigas Soup, or smashed with mayo as a sandwich filling, or in a pita with veggies.

The soup/stew base I found last week which I intend to use this year. Making it before I freeze a bunch of it is a really good idea as we’ve never had it!

Salad mixes – like 3 bean salad, except I hate 3 bean salad. But these kinds of salads can be mixed ahead. I’ll have to think/research this idea.

Quiche Base or Mix? Given that I’m supposed to make 1 dinner a week with eggs, maybe this is an idea? Never looked at quiche recipes with that idea.

Those will make the double meals easier. What else can I do?

White Sauce Balls I did this years ago and it was a success. You mix flour, butter, a little milk, salt and if you’re a purist white pepper. (I only use white pepper when I already have it. I don’t care if my white sauce has black speckles or not! YMMV!) You measure this paste out into 1T balls and freeze. Need to make gravy? Grab one or three.

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

Other ideas:

• “Tray bakes” or “one pan” meals for the double  meals.
• Self-frosting cakes (also one pan cakes).
• Preplanning enough to use all the bits. When I make stuffed tomatoes mid summer as an entree, I use the innards the next day. That’s something I’ve always done. I wonder what else I can set up that way?

Research! Think! Plan! Do!

 

Stair Rails, Minisplits, & Life Work

I told DH yesterday to add to the list I want to replace the stair rail at some point. It’s shiny brass. The house is going towards flat black or brushed zinc hardware. Flat black on incidental stuff and brushed zinc on things like faucets. (Not shiny brass!)

So I did a bit o’ research and so did he, it will cost $100+ these days to replace the railing.  We explored some DIY ideas, and they’d all cost about the same, so why bother?

It’s a detail and not on the urgent list. If we find a  used flat black or brushed chrome set of hardware, we now know where to buy the railing, prefinished or raw lumber. Info. is almost always nice to have.

I had found a fireplace set I didn’t hate for < $100 and sent him a link. He pointed out it has 2 tools more than we actually need and why buy them? The place where I found this I think has some tools a la carte. I’ll have to go look. The tongs from the current set wound up in the flea market pile because of this discussion too.

The minisplits got more discussion, as did the house design ideas we’ve explored. We talked about taking the home plan we now have to a big box store and talking about floor plans, changing the kitchen around, etc. with one of the free kitchen designers. Don’t know if they’ll actually talk to us without a monetary commitment, but you don’t know if you don’t ask.

DH came up with a piece of hobby equipment for the flea market, prompted me to go find 4 bowls and a length of fabric to add to a new flea market box.

I found in the shed a few things I thought were long gone, but no, they were not sold long ago and far away… they’ll either be put in the booth or the new flea market box, after they’re cleaned. I have a silk pantsuit which needs to be ironed before it gets added too. The china and silk will fill up the end of the box — and another cubic foot o’ stuff goes outta here!

That doesn’t seem like much, does it? But we’ve both been sick, for most of 6 weeks with 2 different colds. And the second one is a bitch and a half to kick, let me tell you!

DH dismantled one of the 2 snowblowers last week. The motor is being kept for a project he has in mind. The rest of the bits and pieces went to the dump. The last of it today. Also, we’ve started hauling the accumulated leaves and bark piles to the dump too.

He resigned from the board he was on and I asked him what we could do to forward his avocation using his now free time? What he did shocked me!

He bought organization materials for the accumulated work, so we can label and catalog it. His heirs will be pleased and I’m relieved. I had this nightmare vision about going through the work and only having my best memory and no knowledge of the technical side of what he did, when and where. Hopefully, at some point, there will be (even self-published) a complete catalog.

We’re adulting here. It’s a slow process, but it’s happening. All I have to do now is find some weird convoluted way to turn it into some $. That’s all?

More Frugality

Because the thing I want to save the $ for is a heating/energy unit, I went looking at our electric company’s website. So they kept referencing apparently an old, Obama-era site, which of course is no longer active, but there’s no other referral.

I am, can you tell, really impressed with our local electric company. Wonder why? See here for more info.

In their defense, I will say that the 3rd time they sent us the “You’re using more energy than your more energy efficient neighbors” letter, they did at least make some reference to what they were comparing us to, a typical home in our zip code. Of course, they never actually said what that was, so it was still meaningless, but less so than previously.

DH is set on getting at least one minisplit  this year and maybe another next year. Okay. The chimney cap we’re replacing this year is the last piece of the chimney/wood stove replacement project. The only piece other than that on the chimney which hasn’t been replaced is the veneer over the pipe, a box around it. I’d love to replace the box, but it’s mostly cosmetic, not structural.

If I win the lottery, we’re going to get the minisplits, solar panels AND a new fake riverrock box around the chimney pipe with a mantel to match. Just sayin’!

Barring that? We’re getting a new chimney cap and at least one minisplit.

My husband said to me, empathically emphatically this morning, that he didn’t want to haul wood or load it into the stove another year.

Okay!

I just have to find a way to make this happen! Squeeze those dollars!

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Plant and landscaping frugality: A 1 gallon potted perennial is $35 at Lowes, about $32 with a discount. If you buy them at garden club sales, they’re around $10-$20. Cheaper yet? Layer a 2nd one from one you’ve got, or plant the seeds, or divide it? — Free!

Mulch frugality: Garden centers at big box stores typically sell opened bags of mulch, etc. for 1/2 price. Cheaper yet? Use the pine needles, pine bark, leaves, what have you that you have in your yard already as mulch. Free!

The Celery Thing: I’ve run into this a couple of times, people talking about planting celery plants in their yard. I did this last fall, and the plants are gone this spring, again.

Photo by Sole D’Alessandro on Unsplash

I went looking for more information. The best I found is a woman who’s been using the same 7 celery plants for years. She lifts them in the fall and makes them houseplants during the winter (and uses them). You can find her write up about this here. (The site is full of interesting ideas too: choosingvoluntarysimplicity.com .)

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Gawd I love spring.

And I hate it; I’m always overwhelmed with things to do, ideas to explore, etc. Too much!

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Despite still being sick, I managed to spread one of the remaining bags of mulch this morning on the bulb bed. I also transplanted two daffs AND moved some rock, sand, etc. I was wiped out after about an hour, which is typical these days.

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On Saturday: the plant sales were a success and not as cheap as I’d hoped. The library/town sale where I’d bought a 1 gallon pot for $10 last year, they were $15. (I got 2.)

The other plant sale where I stopped I got 2 6″ perennials for $5 each.

Sunday? Our next door neighbor took out 90% of a forsythia bush (what the 1 gallon pots held)  and gave me a branch which should get us the last two plants I think I need, for free. I wish I’d known the neighbor was going to whack up his 15 year old plant 1 day earlier, could have saved us $30!