A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.–Eleanor Roosevelt

This is my goal for the next two weeks. Simplify. Isn’t that a wonderful word? It’s been used a lot in fabric names and patterns lately. Must be significant of our times.

My friend Anne and I were talking and she suggested taking an hour a day to work on cleaning out the “stuff”. You know, the stuff that collects all over the house? You’ll find it when you open a drawer, open your closet or look at that stack of papers by your desk that have piled up.

I HATE to show you my mess, but I realized that in order to get my point across you have to look. I’m taking an hour each day to work on these kind of projects and I’m starting with my magazines, and catalogs. I can’t believe how quickly they pile up! They are in every room, calling my name, collecting a bit of dust, and waiting for me to rescue them from the stacks!

After stack,

And the solution? I have a few that I’ll share, but I’d love to hear yours! What do you do with those magazines you subscribe to?

I have two magazines that I love and I can’t part with a single issue, “Victoria” and “American Patchwork and Quilting”. I keep these in magazine holders on my book shelves, arranged by date and year. I need to add labels and this will be part of my one hour a day cleaning session. (:

Next, I go through the rest of the magazines and tear out the articles I want to keep. Some I glue into sketch books so I can easily flip through the pages for ideas,

And some go into plastic pages in 3 ring binders

I have a binder for each subject. Part of the process of simplifying is to add beauty to your life. I have to do something to dress up these binders! Add that to my one hour a day…

Oh no! I think I hear the mail truck coming! NOT MORE MAGAZINES! Help! What should I do? My husband says I get more catalogs and magazines than anyone on earth. He can’t be right, it would be the first time!

It’s Friday the 13th, but The Bunny Club doesn’t know it! I’m off this morning to teach at Thimble Creek Quilt Shop. It’s Bunny Club day! We plan on sewing the day away making my pattern “Little Jelly Bags”! We’ll have jelly strips in every color and I hope to take some pictures to show you! This pattern was so much fun to design. It was the result of two friends working together to design the perfect little bags! There are SO many uses for these little bags. My friend Anne made at least 17 bags before we finished the pattern.

I love the shabby chic look…

And Anne likes the darker colors…

And just wait until I show you Anne’s grand-daughter with her new Jelly Bag. Anne made the wrist strap and inserted it into both sides of the bag and ta da….a little girl’s bag was born! I’m still waiting on the picture…hint, hint (:

And to prove this is a lucky day…check out Elizabeth Scott over at Late Bloomer quilts. She’s the first designer to use my fabric in one of her designs! I’m just so excited about it. She used “Flowers for Emma” to make her pattern called “Emma’s English Roses”. I’m telling you this is a darling little quilt! The stems on the flowers are ric rac, and some of the flowers have little button centers. Thank you Elizabeth! Your designs are so cute! http://www.latebloomerquilts.com/store/product.php?prod_id=55&cat_id=1

Have a wonderful Friday the 13th!

This cleaning thing has turned into a major project, and from all of your comments in my last post it sounds like I’m not alone. It’s good to know that others are out there sorting through stacks of accumulated “must haves” too! How on earth do we pile up so many things, and how do so many things manage to get right where we need to work? The perfect example is my collection of rotary cutters. I am NOT to blame for this…the Olfa Corporation is.

How could they keep adding “”limited edition” colors and expect us not to buy one? What if all our friends bought one and we didn’t get in on the deal? I have two work stations, each with a collection of rotary cutters, and then I have the traveling ones that go to classes with me, this all adds up to a LOT of rotary cutters. My cleaning frenzy has brought this to my attention because now I’m on the hunt for the perfect container for my rotary cutters and Olfa is to blame. All I can say is they BETTER not come out with another color.

Right in the middle of my organizing phase, I got an email from Restoration Hardware. Guess what? They have a new collection called Baby & Child. http://www.rhbabyandchild.com/rhbc/catalog/category/category.jsp?navAction=jump&navCount=16&categoryId=rhbc_cat101011 I can see they’ll be added to my list of companies to blame very soon. Just look at these storage boxes! Pink of course.

And these pink suitcases! For storage only, but don’t you love them? Too bad they don’t hold rotary cutters LOL!

My next thing to tackle is the magazines. Those are MUCH worse than the rotary cutters and I have to spend some time sorting through all stacks. I have a sorting system that works for me and I’ll share it with you in my next post.

Please don’t tell me if you buy the pink suitcases. I’ve already spent too much money on the pink boxes with the dots…had I just known this “baby” would have these! (: