time to swap into spring!

With the hours of daylight increasing and the first daffodils and cherry blossoms popping up - spring is on its way! Along with the slightly warmer weather and sunshine comes the traditional push for spring cleaning (woo!) and this year I'm jumping on the bandwagon! My resolution to de-stress my life rolls nicely into wanting to clean up and de-clutter the house and this year I signed up for a clothing swap to get that extra motivation to get started! Yay! I've participated in loads of swaps in the past and it always so lovely to go through the closets and get rid of unwanted items. I haven't been to a swap in quite some time (unlike when I lived in Kamloops and we had one at least twice a year), so I managed to get quite the haul of donations. Since I'm going to a clothing swap at The Makehouse (link) (and not just a friend's living room) I decided to be extra kind with my swap items and labeled each one with measurements and sorted them by size in each bag! Check out the pile:

I am always surprised with how much I can get rid of, but they do say you only wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time so I guess this is mostly that other 80% I rarely break out.  Since I'm still on my "happy up my life" kick, I really wanted to critically analyse what pieces I wanted to keep and came up with a list of questions I'd ask if I was unsure if I wanted to donate an item or not. Here goes:

1) Does it fit?

2) How well does it fit? 

3) Have you worn the item in the last 6 months or so?

4) What quality is the piece in?

5) Does it make you feel awesome?

and

6) Would you buy this item again?

If you answered negatively for 1+ of those questions it's time to get rid of it and move on! I was found the "would you buy this again" question particularly motivating since I felt like I should be giving certain articles of clothing a second chance in my closet but quickly realized "Kate - you don't even really like this "insert clothing item" - so you may as well donate it!" Ah! So liberating! Plus my 4 bags of unwanted and ill-fitting clothes might be just perfect in a new home! I need to make sure I go through my closet more often and continue to be critical if I decide to bring anything new into wardrobe.  Only things that will increase my awesomeness allowed please! How is your closet doing? Are you in need of a little spring clothing swap yourself?  

bring on the decluttering!

Much like I mentioned in my refashioning post yesterday (link), as part of my resolution to cut out the stress and lead a happier and more wondrous life I've been tackling the clutter and moving onward! I've been making pretty good progress with my sewing projects and today after work I thought I'd take 15 minutes and finally take on the giant headache of a bathroom drawer I have. Does everyone have on of these in their house? It's a mash of tangled bits that I scramble through a few times a day which makes me feel irrationally angry but for some reason I never seem to bother to organize. Well not today. Today I will take on this disaster drawer:

Ok, so I admit this organizing was a little preemptive.  I have been thinking about tackling my mess for a good eight months now (oh boy, I'm a pro procrastinator) and on my way home from work I thought I may as well check out the dollar store and see what they have in the ways of cheap organize-y things I could use in the drawer. The result? A wonderful section of little container bits at a reasonable price that were just begging to come home with me! Hooray! Then all I had to do was drop my purse at the door, kick my shoes off, and get drawer organizing! Bam! Here's the after shot:

I must say I had way more little clear hair elastics and bobby pins than I thought I did (like, 2+ packages worth) and I am looking forward to the next time I need to find "insert random toiletry item" and can whip it out in seconds flat! Ahha! Why in the world did I put this off for so long when it is so ultra satisfying to be organized and useful?! Well no more lazy, self sabotaging, procrastination for me! Bring on the decluttering and bring on the stress free living! Woo hoo! 

Time to Resolve!

Oh the good ol' new years resolution. Each year I get motivated to change my life for the better and quickly after January starts I lose momentum and feel guilty about my eventual failure. Okay, so this isn't always the case, but I do think the whole idea of a new start in a new year is a little silly. There's really no reason why all the change needs to happen after Jan. 1st (and not, say, any other day of the year) but I suppose anything that pushes you for the better is a good thing! I've got a few stereotypical goals of my own for 2012 (so let's list them and hope it gets me extra motivated!):

1) Get Healthy(er)! Since we moved to Victoria in September my immune system has been on the fritz and with my new rheumatologist and medical trials I'm hoping to heal up! Yay!

2) Keep up with the craftiness! I'd love to get working on a whole slew of craft show stock so I am prepared and ready for the ever exciting new markets I'm hoping to dip into this spring/summer. Hopefully I'll even manage to photograph stuff to so I can share it on here and list some on etsy. OooO! What a plan! Heck - maybe I'll even be able to add to my wholesale and consignment stores!

3) Lose some weight. Yes yes, everyone always seems to add this to their list, but I mostly just want to be able to fit into my pants again. Losing weight is cheaper than having to buy a new wardrobe right? I'm just trying to be thrifty! (Oh and the weight loss would be great for my joints too). Any low impact tips for me?

and 4) Blog with impact. I may not be able to stick to the daily posts, but I am hoping to have a year of wonderfully interesting crafts, recipes, outfits, links, and images to share with you along the way! I'm aiming to feel less stressed about the quantity and extra focused on the quality. In an ideal world I'll even manage to make up a few tutorials on here to help you with your wide set eye smile endeavors as well! Hooray!

That seems like quite the challenge for the new year, but here's to hoping they all go well. What do you think? What are your resolutions and how to you stick to them?