Lobster Shorts decluttering

Craft Room Declutter

I love crafting. I have many hobbies that come with a lot of stuff, which can become a mess. Sometimes that mess gets out of control and I shut the door and ignore it. Out of sight out of mind.
I always wanted a desk with a pretty paperweight, antique inkwell/pen stand, and envelope opener. I do not have the inkwell and pen stand or even the witchy writing desk of my dreams, but I can do better, ya know? There is no reason to let what I do have turn into a nightmare of a mess. This room should be functional… and it wasn’t.

The closet contains a mix of sewing items, mostly fabric, a chest of letters a binding machine, and other odds and ends.

I also have a ton more fabric piled on the floor along with a sewing machine. There are also random boxes filled with random items, all over the place.
This corner isn’t all that much better, although I see a bare spot on the floor. This shelf is piled high with card-making supplies and on the floor scattered with a lot of my woodworking supplies. This room was long past due for decluttering.

The first thing I tackled was the closet. I managed to get all the fabric in there, including the two giant bolts that were on the floor under the shelves. The photo doesn’t show it, but all the fabric not visible is folded or rolled and on the top shelf at the very top of the closet. My sewing patterns are in the plastic totes now on the floor. Cutting mats, foam, and bristol board are tucked behind the fabric rolls. It’s not a picture of a perfectly tidy and organized closet, but having all that fabric put away helped a lot.

I didn’t get much done here, but all the clutter on the floor has been tidied and dealt with.

With the fabric all tucked away, the shelves look much better.

The desk is functional and I can actually use it to write letters again. There’s even room for the spooky writing desk of my dreams if I find one (fingers crossed!).

I can walk in there without stepping over stuff. It’s much more peaceful.

I didn’t get rid of many things. I didn’t want to. I love all my crafts and there wasn’t much I wanted to part with. I would like to do more projects minimizing the amount of supplies I have, without getting rid of anything. It turned out fairly well, for not doing a big declutter. In the future, I’ll only get what I need for the immediate project I’m working on. Less clutter that way.

And look, I can access my foraging basket again.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, decluttering, Food, vegetarian

Oatmeal, Cards, and Decluttering

Ontario has interesting weather this time of year. Yesterday, I was in a Winter coat, and today it was over 20 and I was kayaking. The weekend started with coffee and a bagel at the Stone Town Café in St Marys. We sat by the river in the sunshine and watched a muskrat swim around in the river, while we had our breakfast.

I felt like decluttering more of the bathroom today and tackled my hoard of a medicine cabinet. It was so overfull, that things would fall out when I would take something out. Half the bottles were empty, or expired.

This is everything I removed. The allergy medication had expired in 2018! It’s good to check on these things. Most of these containers are empty and going into the recycling bin, but the little Rubbermaid container and the glass jar I’m going to wash out and reuse. The Rubbermaid container had corn starch that I was experimenting with using as a dry shampoo. It worked okay, but not as good as the spray on type. The glass jar is going to end up in my crafting room.

I used these masks with my spouse after I finished cleaning out the cabinet. I bought them because people make them look fun online. We watched a TV show while we had them on (Gravity Falls, cute show!). They were really moisturizing, but I’m not a mask person.

It’s still pretty full in there. A lot of these bottles are sample sizes from Ipsy, that I won’t be buying again when they’re empty, same with the brands that use animal testing It’s a lot more functional now and things don’t fall on top of me when I pull something out. Overall, I’m much happier with it.

Sunday breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal with peaches, maples syrup, and pumpkin seeds. I used steel cut oats and they took a lot longer to cook. I like the rolled better, but these keep me full longer. I’m not sure which one is going to win, convenience, or the steel cut.

I made Mother’s Day cards with a new cutting die set. I love these teapot shaped cards. Too cute! They come with a word set that says Tea Party. I LOVE tea parties. I’ll use them again for invitations when we are able to have gatherings again.

I made the one on the left with an embossing folder and used gilding wax to make the pattern stand out. The love birds card is cute, but my love birds look terrified. I need more practice colouring pupils.

The card on the left is my favourite. The one on the right is a little plain, but I love the spa girl cutting die set. I’ll have to play with it more.

This bookworm die set is super adorable. I love it! I’ll post a video with a link to all the supplies I used below.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, decluttering, Food, weight loss

Breakfast, Cards, and Organization

This weekend the weather was beautiful. It’s finally starting to feel like Spring out there. The mornings were frigid and the afternoons were warm, which I hear is great maple syrup weather. For the big weekend breakfast I made scrambled eggs, with air fryer home fries, blueberries, and humming bird cake.

The humming bird cake came from Kitchen Smidgen and it was delicious. We’ve had it before, it’s one of the best things they make. Eggs and home fries are my favourite weekend splurge. I’ve been sticking with the weekday intermittent fasting. I’m still down three pounds, which is not bad since my birthday week benders of surprise dinners and a couple bags of chocolate eggs (that are gone now). I had gained back the weight and lost it again.

My bathroom drawer finally irked me into decluttering it.

It was a non-functional disaster. My bathroom drawers usually end up this way. Nothing organized, just dumped in a pile in the drawers. Before the pandemic, I was scouring the antique shops looking for decorative boxes or tins to tidy them up. I haven’t been back to one since the virus, I’m not sure they are even open. On Friday, I went on a 12km walk, during that walk I ended up at the MCC Thrift Shop in Kitchener.

This chocolate tin was there for $2.00 and ended up being $0.50 at the check out. It was perfect because the drawers aren’t very deep and this tin is thin. I put all my make up into it. It holds a lot

The drawer looks a million times better. It’s organized and functional.

I’m thrifting a couple things. A facial massager and a makeup bag. I’d like to refinish the bathroom vanity, it has a lot of superficial damage, but that’s a project for a different day.

I made some cards this weekend. I’ll post a video below of what I made and the products I used to make them.