Tag: declutter

Happily Reorganized!

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment
My art desk, plus one cubby under the TV, for drawing and watercolor painting supplies.
My acrylic painting station, and the “overflow cabinet” in the hallway.

After I was done decluttering my supplies, I took the opportunity to give each item a new and more productive home.

I wanted to keep supplies closer to where I’d actually use them, so I grouped my drawing and watercolor stuff together as I generally do both of those at the desk. I also moved my purse from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet to make room for my acrylic supplies so they could be close to the easel!

I counted and I have a total of 14(!) sketchbooks, not counting the 4 I have fully filled. Out of those, 9 have been drawn in already. I’m only keeping the ones I’ve been most active in lately in the bedroom, I’m hoping that focusing on a few specific ones will help me fill them up faster.

With everything nicely organized, and plenty of supplies that I know I like just waiting to be used up, I think 2022 will be off to a good start 🙂

May the coming year be full of creation! Happy New Year everyone!

Everything in one place

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment

So I decided not to make a written catalog of all of my art supplies because the idea was extremely daunting, especially after seeing the pile.

I included both my and my partner’s art supplies because we share with each other, even though some things are more mine and some things are more hers.

I ended up doing most of the decluttering as I removed things from the cabinet in the hallway. So what you see in that photo is pretty much just what was left as my “keep” pile. There were a few things though, like the Zebra Zensations mechanical colored pencils, and the 6 sheets of Canson XL watercolor paper, that went bye bye after this photo.

I decluttered all of my tempura paints (because I’m now using acrylics instead!), a Winsor and Newton Cotman travel watercolor set (I have every color in that set and more in my custom palette), several sets of Crayola crayons, and quite a few other miscellaneous little things. And that’s just the art supplies! I also donated a bunch of baby stuff that our daughter has already outgrown, some clothes that don’t suit me, and other random household items we no longer need.

This has been the biggest declutter since my first big purge back in January of 2019. Hard to believe I’ve been pursuing the minimalist lifestyle for so long now! I’m hoping the No Buy can help me do better now and in the future.

Although I’ve been fighting my hoarding tendencies over the last 3 years, I hadn’t really combatted the real root of the problem: my shopping addiction. I’ve learned to let things go when they stop serving me, but I haven’t learned to stop acquiring things in the first place. This lead me to buy things only to declutter them a week or two later!

I’m really happy with how I ended up reorganizing everything, made the whole process worth it. I’ll be back shortly with a separate post about that!