My Trash, Somebody Else's Treasure

A few days ago, I got real with myself: I had a whole bunch of odd bits in my storage shed that needed to be tossed. Or given away. Or a combination of the two.

These were things I'd picked off the curb, myself, and was hoping to rehabilitate, someday.

You know how that goes: "Oh, that chair would be so cute if I sanded it and painted it and added a cushion...."

Except you never get around to it.

So I put everything out on the curb. Then, throughout the day, I watched the pile slowly diminish.

First to go was the taller chair and the urn on the smaller chair (above). They both disappeared within an hour of going out to the curb.

My handyman liberated the two front picture frames. He said he'd give them to his wife, who's a crafter. I'm glad they'll finally get the attention they deserve; thank you, Mr. Handyman!

The terra cotta pots stayed on the curb until after dark, when somebody swept them up. The oval windows were spirited away sometime between my bedtime and coffee the next morning.  

Around noon the second day, everything was gone except these two window frames. Then a sweet young woman knocked on my door, introduced herself as a crafter, and asked if I would mind if she took them. 

Would I mind? Certainly not! She saved me a trip to Goodwill.

And now my storage shed is uncluttered again.

Tossing Flowers

A while back--okay, a long while back--I bought a bunch of these acid-free archive boxes. For years, they held magazine and newspaper clippings. Each box held articles and pictures close on topics close to my heart: gardening, decorating, travel, etc.

But then, the Internet happened.

With Google, Google Images, and Pinterest, who needs clippings? I can type in "French flower garden" or "where to collect sea glass" and in an instant be flooded with info. Clippings are just clutter, now. So I opened up these boxes and started recycling:

Well, first I had fun looking at the images one last time. THEN I recycled all the paper. Because really, anything in the box could be called up on my laptop in a matter of seconds:

Still, it was fun going through the boxes once more. I found stuff I saved when I was planning out my rose garden, including the colors of roses I wanted to plant:

I faithfully kept these "What to do in Southern California" articles from Sunset magazine for years. I mean, YEARS!:

And in the clippings, I recognized certain trends. I love clever containers for forcing bulbs:

I'm a sucker for a cottage garden--especially if there's a birdhouse or two involved:

Sweet Peas are my love:

As are hydrangeas:

And lavender:

And fragrant, home-garden roses (not those scent-less creatures they sell in grocery stores):

I adore white flowers. And tulips. And white tulips just send me over the moon:

Did I mention I love hydrangeas?

My goodness. Look how long I've kept some of these articles! My mother grew gorgeous Bearded Iris in our back yard when I was a child. One whiff of an iris, and suddenly I'm a knock-kneed six-year-old again, thrusting my nose into these glorious, perfumed harbingers of spring:

Day lilies--but only pink and white and pale yellow day lilies--make me crazy-happy:

And I never met a chippy, Victorian-style, white-painted garden thingummy that I didn't immediately love:

Ooh, look! Packets of sweet peas--with seeds still inside!:

Oh, dear. They are 13 years old. *Sigh.*

Too bad. I love Sweet Peas to distraction. (Or did I say that already?)

And although I can't grow African Violets worth beans, they always make me smile, because my mother and her mother were both champion African Violet growers:

I would travel to the ends of the earth to see a flower this blue:

And this French-looking garden? Magnifique!

I have a tuteur, although mine is a much more rustic one, made of precisely cut twigs. My tuteur doesn't grow anything on it. It just looks so darn cute:

Oho. Now, this brochure is worth saving. California is going through a drought, and by all accounts it is going to get much worse before it gets better:

Yes, indeed. I'll be keeping this one, too:

But as for the rest of the paper and ephemera, it's outta here:

Won Ton is showing you the size of the bag that I filled with the clippings I don't need to save in physical form any more:

See ya on da Interwebs, pretty pictures! Knowing I can always call you up, it wasn't hard to let you go.

And now, I have a stack of beautiful, empty archival storage boxes waiting for my next project.

New Use for an Old Hutch

You might remember that a few months ago I dragged home a hutch I found in the alley:

I've had fun dressing up the top of it to show off some of my china and to reflect the holidays, like the Fourth of July:

But I've largely ignored the storage space underneath the hutch:

 

This past weekend I realized the cabinetry below the hutch would be the perfect place for my flower-arranging things. Up 'til now, I stowed them above the dryer in the laundry room:

But they weren't conveniently located. By moving these items to the hutch, they are closer to the front door, where I go out to gather my roses. And now they are also closer to the kitchen sink, where I strip leaves, re-cut stems, and fill vases with water.

So I made the switch:

(I also tucked a basket of vitamins down there, which I want within arm's reach of the kitchen table.)

And then I had two empty shelves above my dryer. Yay, newly reclaimed space!:

I cleaned the shelving, then moved in a collection of spray paints, chalk paint, and such that had been loitering about on the laundry room counter, looking for a better home:

Ah! That's better!

Still lots of room to spare:

Sometimes, having more space means re-thinking the space you already have:

 And now, on to more creative things, like flower arranging!:

De-Cluttering the Fabric Closet

To the casual observer, I might look like a Very Organized Person. (Trust me, I'm not!) Take, for example, my leftover fabrics:

I store my scraps of fabric in big, snap-lid boxes, stacked in a closet. Looks impressive, right?

But the fabrics are all jumbled up. And there are things in the boxes that I haven't touched in years. To me, that's a kind of stinginess. Why should I hang on to things I'm not using? Somebody, somewhere would enjoy these pretty fabrics:

Oops. Digging down a bit, I find a white sheet, in perfect condition. It even has an tag on it. What is THAT doing in the fabric box? It should be in the linen closet:

I set aside all the fabrics I know I'm not going to use any time soon, and I'm left with a much smaller selection. Some of these include old shirts from The Hubby, which have already been butchered to a small degree:

Here's Pao Pao (left) and Mu Shu, sporting some July Fourth duds made from The Hubby's old shirts:

Some of the fabrics tell of my evolving passion for pugs. Years before we adopted Won Ton, I had a pillow made out of this gorgeous fabric, below. There is enough left over for something--don't know what, yet:

At the end, I had a large pile to donate to Goodwill. These fabrics were all too fancy, too heavy-duty, or too muddy-colored to appeal to me:

And this is the pile of fabrics I kept. (Do you notice a theme?):

What a fantastic bunch of yo-yo's these would make!