28-Day Organizing Challenge

Well, the time has come. I've been putting this task off until February so I could join in the Organizing Junkie's 28 Day Organizing Challenge, and it will be no easy task. When you see the pictures below, you'll probably be so happy that this mess is at my house and not yours. I had the choice of a small space or a whole room, and I need to go for the whole room. I've chosen my craft room. My usual mantra is that my craft room is the dumping ground for everything at times, but this mess is of my making alone. Yep, those are hard words to swallow.

So, here comes the walk of shame, but hopefully, by the end of the month, I'll be doing the happy dance!


Okay, this is the view as I walk into my room. As you can see, there are SEVERAL stacks of books on the floor. Most of these are recent acquisitions from my aunt as she was doing some housecleaning recently, too. The good news is that I'm a big-time user of Paperbackswap.com and bookmooch.com, and that's how I get rid of them so I can get other books that I want to read. One of my goals for the window wall is to actually put up a curtain rod and hang some curtains so I don't always have to look at those dull mini-blinds. I'd also like to hang some sort of push-pin board to pin up different ideas for craft things that I come across.


Moving clockwise, you can really see where the mess is. There's the tablecloth that I used for Thanksgiving dinner, a coat hanging on the back of a chair that I need to get a new heavy duty hanger for, another stack of books, some clothes, some jewelry that I've made that I sell on the side, and some of the quilting stuff that I've been working on lately. Obviously, this is where I need the most help. My big goals are to get the books swapped, the jewelry stored better, and the quilt on it's way to being finished. Oh, and one other thing...that tv at the top of the picture would love to have cable hooked up to it so I can actually watch something besides dvd's. Hubby's been telling me for awhile now that he'll do it...I just need to get that area more accessible.


This is not quite as bad as the rest of the room in this corner, but there's still some work to be done. Most of the stuff at my sewing desk is already pretty well organized, but the big work over here is the computer desk. Even though it doesn't show in this picture, I need to get it cleaned out and organize everything just a little better.


And now we're at the other part of the room that really needs some work. Most of this is just stuff to go through, decide if I need it or not, and put it where it belongs.


And the last space...the closet. A lot of what's in here is just stuff that I never really unpacked when we moved into the house. I have two big goals concerning the closet. First, there's a whole box of photos that I want to get into photo albums that I bought months ago. Second, I want to clear it out enough to actually hang up some clothes in here (i.e. hang my spring clothes in there in the winter, and the winter clothes in there in the spring). That tall black thing is my canopy that I use for fairs and festivals to sell my jewelry that I'd like to relocate somewhere.

So, as you can see, I have my work cut out for me, and I'm going to be very busy. I plan to post weekly updates to track my progress, and hold myself accountable to get it done. I've already made a little bit of progress sorting through the books, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Wish me luck! :o)