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[educatingarti]

This is the new minimalist/decluttering thread! I hope everyone likes the minimal title!

yy fuzzpig - even just 1 item a day is good and makes you feel that you are making progress and inspires you to do a bit more!

argh **educatingarti - was also reading your secon post where YOU echo fuzzpig.

Threw out a load of half-used children's workbooks/colouring books etc last night, as well as some beaten up old kids shoes that I definitely could not pass on.

I also decided to listen to some free decluttering hypnosis tracks on YouTube. I think my brain needs reprogramming so I'm going to search for a few different titles and see which ones work for me.

I did a 20 minute one today, called something like 'Clean and Tidy with Hypnosis' or something. It was good, although it didn't expressly deal with the idea of getting rid of things, more tidying and cleaning.

I found one to download for about £15 which I am so not doing.

I sort of want a Paul McKenna NLP style track which says things like 'You can easily let go of things you no longer need. You can pass on your excess to others.' I'll let you know if I find anything.

Spent time in the garden playing footie with ds1 (in the spirit of minimalism and trying to consciously add good stuff, not just get rid of things).

I like the idea of pretending to be a famous author, but seriously, I've seen my sales figures. Go ahead and imagine I'm your favourite author if you want, artemis. I fear the truth would only disappoint you. I'm v proud of my book and in usual circs press copies into the hands of everyone I meet but I've been v honest about my personal circumstances here so I shall remain elusive and keep writing the blog.

Have been hard at work minimising the weird fruit teas (ie drinking my way through 'em). Arm isn't working well enough to do any decluttering (old injury flaring up) so I think I'll treat myself to a quiet read (and ignore the pile of washing waiting to be put away).

DH watching the football - I'm going to carry on with the SP book. I've finished the toys section (got some great inspiration and ideas!) and am just about to start the bit on books...

Fuzzpig - I like the idea of the building of tents etc using cloth and pegs and packing away at the end of the day as written in SP but not the books, if I told my DD to pack up some of her books she would not be a happy bunny.

Building-you have inspired me to go through my DCs craft drawers. There are a lot of colouring/activity books in there that need to go.

Tomorrow I plan to blitz the playroom, any advice on how to store Lego??
I have to keep it as DS1and2 DH would sob if I gave it away

back to work this week so concentrating on decluttering my head at the end of the day is enough for me! But the good news is there was interest in my large items on gumtree but it was stowed away in my junk email folder. Getting optimistic again about gaining space!

With Lego I am just going to bung it all in a big ikea tub, they don't mind it all being mixed up.

Craft stuff is a good one. I've never been organised with arty stuff so they never really get to use it at home as I just find it too stressful (bad mummy). And then I just occasionally get those basically prepared kits which are really uninspiring and actually they DCs really don't enjoy them much. I'd like to just have a box/drawers they could go to with all manner of stuff like different types of paper and drawing materials, glue, collage stuff, scissors etc so they can just create whatever they want AND it would all be easily storable. There is no point doing something like that until the house is much calmer and less cluttered though - if I did it now it'd be carnage! Maybe if we are done by Xmas it would make a good joint present for them (they'll be 6.6 and 4.4).

Thanks for the reminder about workbooks, DD has loads and does like them although they are buried among other stuff so not very accessible. That'd be another area I could do easily. I'm sure there's some we can get rid of.

I'm not sure DH is particularly interested in the SP book, he looked tempted to roll his eyes :o though he did agree that a lot of its principles are ones we already share (like living life slowly rather than rushing around everywhere, not 'overparenting' etc) and he is definitely on board with decluttering gradually anyway.

On lego - this is the only thing ds2 plays with and we have sooooo much of it. He makes and remakes the models so we have some sets in their boxes, a box of mixed & some clear plastic boxes with single colours in (which sounds crazy but ds2 loves making mosaics and flags and pictures with his lego and separate colours is easier).

I still haven't worked out the best way to store it in a way that makes it really easy for ds2 to put bricks away himself (maybe that ikea storage unit with the drawers?) but I could get totally obsessed with this so I'm trying to let go... I want someone to invent a lego hoover that separates by colour. Lego is my crazy place.

My big Lego tip (probably so obvious that everyone already does it) is to put the Lego on a big cloth on the floor so when it comes to clearing up you can just gather up the cloth and tip the pieces back into the box...

I also relax about the Lego when I make things with it next to ds2. I love playing with it. I want to make a secret garden.

lego... when I was about 9 we got bunk beds and I once leapt out onto a lego bloody village that my little brother had built in the middle of the night. OUCH!

" I want someone to invent a lego hoover that separates by colour"

Me too! It would also have to separate out the dust!

As well as DS asking for Lego every birthday and Christmas for the last 5 years, we have all DH's Lego from 30 years ago too. We store it in a Trofast unit with medium buckets for some colours and shallow buckets for the others. And when it comes out, we get out several blankets so it's easier to put away.

Artemis I feel your pain

Harriet lego Hoover, I would buy one of those! The cloth for playing lego on is a brilliant idea, not obvious to me we have a lego table. My neighbour was throwing her table out so I asked if we could have it, this is another problem I have. So we have a mass of lego out all of the time, I'm not happy with this.

Fuzzpig we store in a plastic tub too, I want it sorted but the DCs seem to like it all mixed up for craft things I bought a plastic drawer set from argos, it's on castors so I can move it around. Before the summer hols I'll go to wilkinsons and the works and top up on what's been used up. I tried craft shops but everything was too expensive also eBay has been good for bits.

Clear I'll look into Trofast unit for Lego we also have ancient Lego, a family friend gave us all of his plus DH and birthday/Xmas presents [scream emoticon] !!!

fuzzpig
The trouble with craft stuff is that it is by very nature messy but I love your idea of having an organised area/storage for doing it. I think your dc's would be a great age to implement this too.

I was really into making things a child still am now when I get the time/energy. Doll's houses and pirate ships out of cardboard boxes, little people out of pipe-cleaners (got quite sophisticated at making these), all sorts of "toys" for my little cousins and goodness knows what else. I seem to remember a "stable" made out of an old tissue box and drinking straws for our nativity figures! In the end my mum gave me an old sheet to spread out on my bedroom floor for making things on. She had been remarkably tolerant of the patches of carpet that were stiff with glue before that point though! The sheet was great as I could just bunch it up (covered in bits) and shove it in the bottom of my wardrobe.

fuzz my DH always rolls his eyes about any SP stuff I talk about but then later on he admits it all works, we've been on an SP journey for six years now and it's really worked for our family.

IWill you can get play trays on eBay with a lip all around the edge to prevent stuff falling off which would be perfect for Lego and it can be moved around while a work is in progress

Just tried to look at Harriet's blog but it didn't come up?

fuzz , Harriet Educating

Just been catching up on thread and read about the books and SP, we've found rotating the books have really helped. We're lucky enough to have a loft space which I know not everyone had on here, so we have split the books into quarters and have one quarter out at one time and a few library books. The rest go in a box in the loft ready for rotating back in.

A drawer unit with castors is just the sort of thing I had in mind. I've seen a 'really useful box' one in hobbycraft but will have to resist buying it until much nearer Xmas obviously. It is just the right height to fit under our living room table, which is the only space they'd be able to do craft on anyway (well they will, once it is no longer covered in random shite!) so it'd be the ideal place to keep it. I wouldn't put it in their room, there's no space and can you imagine the chaos if DD decided to start a project in bed ! It's hard enough reminding her to put the lids back on pens when she draws or writes at night.

Anyway, I have good decluttering news! Our homestart volunteer visited today and when I mentioned we've started decluttering she offered to do a charity shop run with me next time :) so that's a great incentive to gather as much as I can in the next week. I wonder how much I can do without keeling over by next Friday?!

I've also finally phoned the council to arrange for the old sofa to be collected. DH has dragged it out on the lawn (sorry neighbours!) as they will come early tomorrow. Living room looks quite big now!

Thanks MM that sounds positive :) I really liked the tips on choosing which toys/books/clothes to keep too. I'm now on the chapter about rhythm and predictability which is something I feel strongly about and I think we are doing reasonably well considering our circumstances, although there's certainly room for improvement :)

fuzz you and me sound very similar. I wish I could say more but I'm worried about 'outing' myself on here

MM - how old are your dcs? I can see how book rotation might work for toddlers and younger children, but from about 6, 7 up I'd have HATED to have been parted from my books even for a while because sometimes I knew exactly which book I wanted to re-read to help me settle/suit my mood and I'd have been very upset if that one wasn't in the current rotation! Glad it is working for you though!

Right

I have work to do, having spent the best part of an hour trying to sort out email problems ( hopefully now fixed)! I'm also leading my church small group tonight so I have to make sure I'm prepared for that (which actually I'm not very so they'll just have to cope!!)

mm it's [email protected]. I don't know how to do the clicky link from my phone but hopefully that should work if you cut and paste into your browser.

We don't have a loft, MM, but we do have spaces where I could store books out of circulation. I might do this at the weekend and put a note in my diary to swap over the books in 3 months or so...