February's Dynamic Declutter, 2014

[Ivy]

1 turtleneck too short in the sleeves.
Several portions of fake grape vines with grapes, etc.. went to the garbage.
Dust on cabinet tops in the laundry room.

[Nancy]

Got the old crock pot out to make room for the new one.
If storage areas are jam packed full it makes clutter worse according tot the book I am mm reading so I rethinking storage areas.

[BookSaver]

Delivered the last of the sewing group's presidents' archives to the new pres last night. It was only 1 file box, but it's out of the house!

Last month I took 3 square plastic ice cream containers to the library to use for storing LEGO pieces. Today I'm taking 2 more. I like those square ice cream containers because the lids snap on tightly and they stack well. (If you want to look for them, the brand name is Country Rich and I bought them at WM.)

I'm going to experiment this morning with covering up the ice cream company's logo with a LEGO logo, either glued or taped on. Once I find my PTouch label maker, I can mark the boxes for "bricks" "wheels" "doors/windows" "people" etc. (Love that label maker thing! I'm usually really good about putting it back in it's safe spot, but I can't find it this morning. I wonder if DH borrowed it?)

Anyway, it's an example of how keeping containers that "might come in handy someday" actually worked out. I had planned to use them for my sewing supplies, but I'm quite happy to donate them to the library so we can spend our money on more LEGO pieces for the kids instead of buying storage containers.

We are very limited for storage space at the library and our LEGO things are already sprawling around far more than our share of the room. Trying to think of how we can use vertical space. Today I'm taking a large empty box to see how many of our smaller containers will fit inside. Then the big box can be the bottom layer, and I'll see how much more will stack on top. (And declutter that big box out of the house without having to put it in the trash.)

I'll try to remember to ask today if the children's librarian thinks big cloth bags could be hung on a wall somewhere. I could easily sew some, either drawstring or I think I have some long zippers. That would be a way to declutter some fabric, too, and I'm always happy to donate useful things to the kids at the library.

[Ivy]

1 bin of clothes is decluttered, clothes, which are too large for me now, are in the ARC donation box. I cleaned the bin, dried it, added dryer sheets, put kitchen yarns in it, so the cones weren't laying on the sofa in the bunny room.

I declutterd the dining room table and eating bar by putting away some Valentine decor. I brought out my Depression glass blue-mixed colors bowel for the dining room table. I decluttered the mail, DH dumped trash, took the garbage and recycle to the curb. I tidied paper crafting items in the bunny room, too.

Been putting away laundry as I go, except.... OOPS! I just remembered, my last lol is on the sofa, dry, awaiting me to fold/put it away. Better scoot real fast!

[Nancy]

When dgson cleans his room he gets bogged down trying to sort legos, army toy gi joe guys, etc.
I talked about how he could just pickup quickly and sort later that there is a difference in cleaning and organizin hopefully this will help to keep his parents happy and dgson to get outside to play sooner and get thm out of the marathon clean your room sessions on the weekends.

[Harriet]

That's a good lesson to teach him, Nancy. His parents may be trying to say, "keep your room neat" and he's hearing, "touch all these pieces and organize them". First he just needs to make space to work. Another time he can organize, and really that could be fun time with some toys.

BookSaver, I was wondering what kind of large box you have. I think it was smart to put a Lego logo on the smaller containers. Maybe if this is cardboard (?) you could Contact-paper it red or something... ...

Ivy, I've been meaning to ask you, when you say, "bunny room", do you mean decorated with a bunny theme?

[Ivy]

Harriet, My on-line ordered house plans (in 2003) from MN had a formal living room in the front, next to the entry hall with an open door to the entry and a 14-foot tall ceiling. We're not the "formal-type" of people, as we don't entertain like that. We live in the great room. So we took the formal living room wall with the door, walled that off, and made the room into my Bunny Room. I have that famous bunny print, framed on the wall. I forgot the artist at the moment. (Been a LONG day!) I have a wooden sign with a carrot on it and "Carrot Patch" in wooden words on it. There are bunnies all along the back sofa, but I've given so many away to visiting little kids, I need to replenish my collection. Hoping Costco will have a bunny variety pack this year, like they did once, several years ago. My Dsis gave me some musical oval glass globes with "snow" in them, with bunnies inside, for the Easter bunny look. There are eggs, flowers, chicks, etc.. on the outside base part of the globes. I have a curio cabinet in the corner with some hand-painted polished marbles and rocks, which have stands. I have some teeny-weeny little wooden bunnies a pen pal mailed to me. DD found me a couple of bunny dishes at Goodwill, too. I have 2 copper bunny statues, too. There are a couple which are clear glass, but one's got green/blue in it, as though it was glass blown. Yes, it's a bunny decor in there. I'd love to find another larger stuffed bunny and then the assorted set of stuffed bunnies, from Costco again. Someday, I'd sure love to sew up myself a bunny quilted wall-hanging! Or crochet a bunny stuffed toy. I've seen them on-line. It'd be fun to do that, too. I bought some things that you stick on the walls, which are Beatrice Potter bunnies standing, then bending over, eventually somersaulting, but they wouldn't stick to our walls, with the finish we have under the pain. It's lightly bumpy; not heavily. I wanted them to be on the walls, too. At Joann's, I found "Wilbur," whom I named. He's got a wooden base, he's a gardening bunny with bib overalls, a straw hat where his ears fit through holes in the hat, he has a shovel he stands next to him and holds on to, so he's a "keeper", too. I have a sofa, stationary bike, coffee table 5-disk CD changer-radio-cassette player in there, with a recliner, lamps, and craft dresser. Right now, my yarn stash is in there with yarns to crochet up and I've got card-making items out to make cards. My Bunny Room's full and bursting at the seams. When the grandsons come in the summer months, they change in that room, put their clothes and backpacks on the sofa and recliner. So I'll get it all organized, things put away and get it all spiffed up before they come. The 2 windows above the metal (my deceased bil's) business desk are super tall and wide, letting in lots of light, too. I do guided imagery in there, too.

I have 1 large box ready to donate to ARC now. I labeled box #2 today, to start on it soon, too.

[BookSaver]

Ivy ~ Your bunny room sounds charming. Is your depression glass bowl the type that is called carnival glass?

Nancy ~ Good advice for your dgson. His parents probably don't give a hoot if all of his toys are in strict order, as long as they're up off the floor in some kind of containers.

Harriet ~ The large box I took to the library was the cardboard box in which latest 2 big LEGO sets were shipped to me from Azon. It is only meant to be temporary so I just used a black marker to write LEGO on the top and all the sides.

I think what we'll eventually try to get is some kind of big crate with wheels, into which we can fit smaller bins. It isn't terribly far from the locked storage room to the meeting room ... until we're carrying umpteen plastic bins of LEGO pieces back and forth.

I was told we could use a flatbed cart on a semi-permanent basis, if I emptied it and moved everything that was blocking it into a far corner. That took some doing, but was worth the effort. The big cardboard box became the 1st layer on the flatbed, then 2 medium plastic bins stacked on that, then smaller bins. That seems like it will work fine until we get another big donation of pieces. However, it is a little precarious (I'm not sure how easily the various lids might pop off if the bins are bumped hard enough to fall), and the cart is tricky to maneuver around the corners.

I also have to assume that I will have to dig it out each time. This time after I emptied the cart itself, I had to clear a path by moving 2 book carts, a broken swivel chair, several boxes of office supplies, and a bag of horse manure from a garden store. We won't be using the LEGO cart again for a month, who knows what might be set in front of it by then.

[Ivy]

Booksaver, I don't know what Carnival Glass Depression Glass is. It's blue-green with reflections of purple, etc.. in it. It's iridescent. It's so beautiful. I have royal blue place mats on the table, around it, and the place mats' color seems to play off the Depression footed oval bowl. It's lovely, DD got it at Goodwill and there's another footed round taller, 6" across round bowl with it, too, although they're not a perfect set. I love this so much, want to collect Depression Glass now, but I have a china cabinet full of cut crystal serving dishes, decorative dishes, etc... There are 2 china cabinets, full of inherited items and collected crystal. Once I began collecting crystal, everyone in the family gave me crystal for my b-day, Christmas, Mother's Day, etc... Now I've got Nana's china collection of 12 pieces, ALL 12 pieces of the set are here, not a chip or crack in 1 dish and DD wants it when I pass away. I know some people would say "clutter" this and "clutter" that, but when it's inherited with such wonderful memories of loved ones passed, how can it truly be clutter?

DH decluttered 5 phone books. We received another new 1, the drawer only takes a 15-Lb. load, so he got some old ones dating back to 2011, to through into the outdoor recycle bin. I decluttered snippets of yarn.

[BookSaver]

Ivy, the Miles Kimball catalog sells reproduction depression glass pieces. Here is 1 of their versions of carnival glass

http://www.mileskimball.com/buy-blue-ca ... jar-338782

It sounds like the colors in your dish, although I'm guessing the reproductions don't have as many colors or quite the same sheen as your vintage dish.

Seems like I remember DMom having a round carnival glass candy dish when I was little. I wonder whatever happened to it. It probably didn't survive being around us 6 kids.