I am not a tidy person. I like to have what I need spread out and accessible around me – and still there the next time I sit down to continue. But I have been so busy lately, and putting together kits and zines in the tiniest corner of my really quite large study made me realise that the ‘essentials’ were spreading out of control. So I got out some bin liners and set to work…
You see, the problem is that what to most people would be genuine rubbish (misprinted papers, discarded packaging) I can genuinely see uses for. The cardboard packaging from a random stationery item can generally be turned into some form of loom. The half-printed papers I can use when I’m experimenting with my own packaging formats, or notebook pages. I was strict with myself, though, and made boxes for full and partial sheets of paper that I could realistically re-use, and sent the rest for recycling. I threw away the chocolate wrappers (look, I need energy while I work, okay?). I was ruthless with the random packaging leftovers. Admittedly I kept most of the card, but the plastic-y bits, and shrink-wrap etc are gone. Hurrah!
By anybody else’s standards this room would not look tidy (except perhaps by Corey’s standards – and he at least will never nag me about the state of my study, because his is infinitely worse). It probably looks like everything has just been pushed out to the edges. Okay, to an extent, this is what I did… But I have also slightly organised all the stuff I was ‘saving’ so that it is actually useable and accessible (findable!), I have thrown away the stuff that really was rubbish (oh my god, 2 bin liners-full!) and I HAVE FLOOR SPACE! Oh, oh, I also have table space! It’s really quite exciting (for me, anyway). So nice to look across from my chair and see carpet, and think I won’t have to nudge everything out of the way to make space when I’m putting the next zine together (watch this space – if I don’t post about TF2 later today, it will definitely be in the next day or so!).
And I brought up a pot of hyacinths from downstairs, so every now and then I get a lovely waft of their rich scent. Mmm…
I fully accept that I should not have allowed my ‘creative disorder’ (okay, mess) to get quite so out of hand; there’s just always so much more important stuff to do than tidying… It has always been and will always be my nature, and I’ve accepted that. It is also possible that it took me slightly longer than perhaps necessary to tidy up this time, as I kept re-discovering things I had accidentally buried. Yes, it was necessary to spend 10 minutes staring at & contemplating a small packet of needles. It was! When I bought it, it was just an ordinary packet of needles, and I honestly thought nothing more about it – but look! I made this:
Yes, I know the picture labelled ‘front’ is actually a different packet of needles to the finished notebook, but I’d finished making it before I realised I should probably have taken a ‘before’ picture. You get the idea, anyway. I just cut some pretty (recently unearthed) handmade paper embedded with petals to size, and attached to the centre panel of the opened-out needle packet (see below). I used a dab of glue to fix the bottom piece of paper to the packet, and stitched the little stack of papers into place. (I could just have easily have used a staple, but I’m kind of into stitched bindings, at the moment.) Just a slightly different spin on the matchbook notepad concept, really – and slightly more appropriate to needleworkers.
(I should really remember to add in a darker-coloured backing when I scan in white/pale blue things; sorry…)
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