The story goes like this - over a six month period an arty/crafty woman gradually spreads beyond the two spare but small bedrooms that form her creative (storage!) space into the study/guest room. It starts when the youngest son of the household finishes school and has a gap year before leaving home to pursue a higher education in Perth. It is possible because the guest room is only needed infrequently. Initially the "spread" just involves a large trestle table/surface area for projects, but over the months a significant flow of materials and supplies of every kind start following the woman who loves them.
Suddenly it is June and the woman's mum (who lives about a thousand kilometres away) is due for her annual visit and it becomes blindingly obvious that she will be sleeping on a couch in the lounge room unless a certain arty/crafty woman takes immediate action. The same woman reflects on the situation at night while trying to sleep and decides that she is feeling very disorganised and over-whelmed with her creative spaces and that a nice little clean-up and reorganisation is necessary (not a total blitz or anything, just a nice sedate reorganisation that involves chucking out junk and rubbish that sticks to this woman like glue - sensing maybe that a accumulative "recycling" type personality lives within?). It seems possible (at least in the middle of the night) to imagine a couple of days of the following week's recreation leave being sufficient to complete the task and still have enough time for more leisurely and pursuits with her mum.
So it starts on the evenings after work a few days before the crazed one's mum is due to arrive - everything that that should not have found even a temporary home in the guest room is moved to the lounge room "for sorting". Fortunately the household includes an incredibly tolerant and bemused husband and an 18 year old son who couldn't care less as long as their path to the kitchen is free and their activity room (the one with the computer, the Foxtel/bigger TV, the drums, the treadmill and the family bookcase etc etc) is left unscathed.
One very loved/loving mother arrives by train late on the evening of the 12th of June and immediately assesses the situation - this is not a holiday she is on, this is a mission! It starts the next day with a realization by both the crazed woman and loving mother that the task needs also to involve the "stuff" in the other two rooms as well. Days pass with both immersed in the task - amazing things are discovered (on the spectrum that caries from "oh my god - what was I thinking" to "WOW - how wonderful - I had forgotten about that tool/supply/material etc") and some progress is made.
By the evening of day four (last night) however, the task is seeming a little too big and a little too over-whelming and both the crazed woman and the loved mother are grateful that the wine supply is good and that the middle and younger sisters are out of eye-sight (on the other side of Australia and in Perth respectively) because both know they would be aghast at their mum and sisters' inability to chuck out/recycle/give-away 30 perfectly good strong handled brown paper bags. OR the reasoning behind the accumulation of boxes (and boxes) of superseded office letterhead paper (that just needs the letterhead cut off and then it will make perfectly good notepads for next to the phone for about 200+ years). OR the lovely wooden spoon handles that eventually fell off the Balinese cooking utensils bought on a family holiday a decade ago (but which could make really interesting art quilt hangers.) OR the 20 spare rolls of foam mounting tape tucked away in a box in a cupboard where they would never be found at a time when they were actually needed. And it goes on and on....
So today is day five and I have missed my blog so thought I would spend a little time sharing the chaos that is currently my life!! All of these photos, taken at 6am this morning (which is after we "tidied up last night!!) are not of the actual creative rooms themselves, just the overflow into the lounge-room and family dining area where I have set up trestle tables to save me squatting on the floor all the time (middle-aged thighs don't cope well with squatting for more than about 10 minutes a day!!). Ask me how I know...And to finish on a creative note - all of the ATCs below are the ones I have received from the "recycled ribbon" challenge. Such great variety!!
(Clock-wise from the left - by Annie Laing, An Buskens, Doreen Grey & Carole Brungar)Yesterday's mail brought this lovely package of music sheets and plastic lace (for sun-printing!!) which I had won on a give-away on Jo Wholohan's blog. I'm excited about this lace as I have been enjoying the sun-printing process and this lace is quite different to the ones I have managed to find. Jo's packaging is just gorgeous and she will be selling these through her etsy shop soon if you are interested.
