Minimalizing

Sandy asked:

Hi Mel, I very happy that you have returned to blogging. I was wondering what you do with art supplies you no longer need or want?

I have a huge collection of art supplies, some dating as far back as high school. Some I have removed from these shelves and found closet shelves, or drawers to keep them or the trash bin to eliminate them. 

 I want to get rid of these IKEA Billy shelves completely, as they only invite collecting.

Oil Paint: Tubes, mediums and brushes. I gave an easel and my large canvases to my brother-in-law John before the last move and I am going to ask him if he would like the paint etc to go with all that. He is semi-retired, so he may now have time to dabble. 

Acrylic paint: Tubes that are dried up, or nearly so will easily get trashed, but liquidy ones I will save, if I can find a spot to put them. I have acrylic-only brushes that I will also save.

Watercolor paint: I will save all of these including the papers and brushes, as I do believe I will go back to painting again, and watercolor doesn't take up as much room as oil painting canvases.

Colored Pencils: Keeping the good Prismacolors, but I have a brand new set of watercolor pencils from Arteza which I will gladly find a new home. 

They work perfectly but I never use them and just had to try them out when my sister bought hers. If you are interested, I will send them to you for the cost of the postage.

Paper: O my, I have really good WC paper and not so great cheap-o WC paper. Why? I find it hard to resist a nice white pad of paper. Geesh. I may separate the good from the not so good and give it to our church school kids.

And then there is fabric...

My fused hand dyed fabric is boxed up and lives quietly out of sight in the yarn room. I am not so much a quilt fabric collector, since I mainly use hand dyed cottons for my work. I will go through my fabric and see what is worth keeping, and offer the rest to my sister and my pal Patsy, both sewers/quilters. I don't have much.

Yarn: I will always knit, even when I am old and feeble, unless my hands stop working. But the finished knits are becoming an issue. I found a vest yesterday that I thought would keep Dave warm and made him wear it for pictures. Perhaps you can tell he is not thrilled. So I may frog this item and have the yarn for another project.  Yarn is easy to keep, as I have a room in this house just for it and my big quilts.

Polymer clay: I was all set to get rid of my clay and all the equipment that goes with it, but I found a spot in a closet for it, so I will keep it. But I did decide not to make anymore jewelry, as I have dozens of necklaces and earrings and hardly wear those as it is. I do really like the vessels and other objects that I have made with polymer clay. 

If I didn't have to keep them, I'd make more of these.

Beads: Out with the beads. I think either my sister or Goodwill will get them. I am done with jewelry.

Dyes: I have lots of dye in powdered form, stored in a bin with liquid dye that has leaked all over. I don't want to bother cleaning it up, so it will all have to go. I am done with that part of my life. If I ever want to dye yarn, I have easier options, like food coloring and Kool-Aid. Seriously, it is just as good and permanent as chemical dyes.

Sewing supplies: I will always sew. But I am getting rid of the myriad templates that I collected 'just in case' I wanted to make a traditional design quilt. Yeah, right. 

Plastic bins: O my...I have a ton of these, and plastic bags too. 

Why???? 

OUT!

So even tho I don't see myself leaving this mortal coil of a long time, I do feel the need to do a bit of Swedish Death Cleaning, if only to save my relatives from having to deal with my crap.