Organizing and projects

Well, the "nesting" instinct kicked in this summer. I have been working on various organizing projects around my home.

[ scrapbook stuff ]

I have 8 banker style boxes labeled "scrapbook" of various flavors (mission, wedding, kids, high school, college, etc.) stacked up next to my work table. One day last week I pulled out one of them to see what was in there. I was surprised to see a bunch of hanging folders labeled with different categories and some stuff already in them. I put them in one of my crates and started going through other boxes, filing pictures, cards, letters and other memorabilia in the appropriate category. I have now got 3 empty boxes. The crate with the hanging files is stuffed rather full now but things are organized in a way that when I am ready to start scrapping, everything will be together. Once the organizing is done, the actual scrapping should go pretty quick. I admit I did throw away a lot of stuff. Some of it I couldn't identify and other stuff was old cards and letters. I read through them and didn't feel any particular desire to keep them so out they went after a few moments of enjoying them. Can't keep everything!

I finished the Disney scrapbook and put those pages along with the pages from our 2003 trip to Washington State (for a Swain family reunion) into a new binder that is labeled "Vacations". That really thinned out the Family book--which will get filled right back up soon. Another part of this scrapbook project has been to find pages that are partially done, get them done and put in chronological order by year and now they are ready for page protectors and to be put in the family book. I have a stack of finished pages 3 inches thick ready to go in!

[ cross stitching ]

Another hobby of mine is cross stitching. I had a lot of partially finished projects that I decided I would just buckle down to and get done. Most of them just needed the sort-of-boring part done. For example, one project was a snowman that just needed the white part filled in. Which doesn't sound so bad except that there were large areas of just white and I find that gets boring after awhile. But this time I just did it. I need to go get those finished projects out and count how many I've done. Some I will frame, others I'm going to try my hand at making wall hangings, pillows or other decorations. I'll post pictures later.

[ sewing ]

My third hobby is sewing. Again, I had a lot of partially finished projects. Right now I am working on a Peter Pan costume for Jordan. I originally started it as a dress up costume but Jordan wants to be Peter Pan for Halloween so I am working on that one first. With Baby Swain due 2 weeks before Halloween, I need to get costumes done early! Christie wants to be a witch so as soon as the Halloween fabrics come in, I will go get some to make her a cape and a black dress. I also had a basket full of clothes that needed mending. Mostly replacing missing buttons or fixing hems. I was surprised at how quickly I got those mending projects done. I have a box full of old blue jeans that have been outgrown or worn out that I want to cut into squares and make a blue jean quilt. So that's another sewing project to work on.

As I finish projects and get boxes emptied, those boxes go out! The banker boxes I collapse and bind together with bungee cords and store in a closet for other use. Packing boxes get recycled. And I get more "open space"! There's something very freeing about finishing projects and finding places for them in my home and getting rid of the boxes and opening up space. Same for going through storage boxes that usually are full of junk that gets thrown away/donated.