I started a Tuesday Thursday series over on Craft Leftovers about Redressing Jason and I’s apartment. I wanted to just get in the habit of posting every Tuesday and Thursday about this particular topic and so I’ve started out pretty specific. Just one project; and each Tuesday and Thursday I show my progress. I am just about finished up with this first intro project to the larger series: the Dresser Redress. It was about refinishing a dresser I picked up from Freecycle. You can see the flickr set of it here.

Handles

The thing is though, this series is so much larger than just one project at a time. I’m not sure how to incorporate all that I’m feeling, all I’m doing, all I’m reading. A huge motivating factor for me to start this series was to keep me accountable… keep me working on it each and every week. Even if it was just for a few hours two days a week. Finishing. I wanted to make sure I finished the projects I started and I also wanted to make this a habit. With the dresser I didn’t want to settle on having a banged up dresser that looked sub par. I wanted to make it beautiful and use it. Not leave it in the garage forever and a day. Not have the winter and summer go by without finishing it. By posting about it, by saying to the 900+ readers a day I get over on Craft Leftovers that I’m working on this to finish it, I feel accountable.

In a way this was the reason I started Craft Leftovers in the beginning. To keep my stash accountable. To make sure that once a week I dug around in my stash and made something with what I have on hand. It worked. After two years I have brought my yarn and fabric down to a pretty manageable size. I love that. And it’s completely changed me. By digging around in my stash once a week for two years, I now dig in my stash first before going to the store. I dig in my stash and around my house before I buy anything. It’s become a habit, a lifestyle, a way of looking at things. It didn’t just change the way I craft, it changed my art, my life. I am a much more resourceful person than I was two years ago.

With the Apartment Redress I didn’t want to just have high hopes of making things nicer in our home, have a week long purge/clean/make session and then let it all go back to crap. I wanted to keep at it. Make it a habit. Do daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning. Work to make things nicer every week, every day, every hour. I wanted to change my way of looking at my home, of my way of seeing and thinking about cleaning and living in my space. I am excited that I will stay on task if I make it a point to post about it

I’ve been reading Zen Habits a lot and that has been a huge inspiration to keep things simple. And Design Sponge to keep things beautiful. I’ve been looking at our apartment more like a blank canvas than a place to put my stuff. It’s completely changed my perspective.

What prompted this extra long post today? Over on Zen Habits I read two great articles on simplifying your life and decluttering. It was just the kind of thing that I’ve been trying to do and I wanted to share it with you because I thought it might help you like it’s been helping me.

15 Great Decluttering Tips

Simple Living Simplified: 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life

I’m not exactly sure where the Tuesday Thursday posts will lead, but hopefully, it will lead at the very least me to a better life, and if I’m lucky, a couple of other people will join me in simplifying and enjoying their home and life in general a little more.

I’ve been thinking that I would keep working on one project at a time for the Tuesday Thursday posts (I want to make a wall rack for all my silk scarves next), but I would also include some other things in there too. Maybe some tips to help declutter (like organizing your yarn stash or how to fold fitted sheets so they can be packed away when not in use and not just look like a bundle of sheets smashed into the closet), links and images of homes that have inspired me, cleaning how-to’s like the best all purpose cleaners and how to get a stain out of the carpet. The sky is kind of the limit and I’m really excited to get going.

And on that note, I am going to get going and put another coat of paint on the dresser.

Have a great sunday and I’m hoping to see you all tomorrow as I have a post already planned out.

Kristin