Whipping Mandy Into Shape, AKA Help For Hoarders

Mandy recently posted about her new craft desk and craft room reorganization.  Let me tell you: the reorg was long over due. As I've observed first hand, there's something about being a crafter that gives one "hoarder" tenancies.  Every bit of used clothing, garage sale trinket, or even roadside trash becomes a potential project. And I do mean potential. Maybe we need a good office cleaning. Most of the aforementioned items linger in the nooks and crannies of a crafter's sewing room, basement, or [sin of all sins] garage, waiting for the crafter to find time to get to the project.

Additionally, crafters tent to accumulate a lot of "stuff" associated with the project. Patters, dies, stencils, paints, brushes, needles, hooks, markers, glues, batting, fabric, fabric, and fabric. All this stuff lingers as well, mixing in with the project materials into organized chaos, sans organization.

It gets worse. Occasionally, a potential project gets completed. Now what? If you're really lucky, it's a dessert and gets eaten. If you're slightly less lucky, the craft gets given away. If you're even less lucky, it's semi-useful and not too bulky, and it lives in the house somewhere. Based on a recent statistical survey, these three instances account for about 8% of craft projects. The other 92% are neither edible, give-away-able, or semi-useful. These crafts exist primarily to perpetuate the phenomenon known as craft blogging, and secondly to torture kind-hearted, supportive husbands who have no spine, in which case the 92% of projects live on and mix in with the "potential projects", "stuff" and other finished projects.

Fortunately, I have a spine [or think I do, seeing as I am now blogging...]. Don't tell Mandy or the kids, but I routinely make a sweep of the premises and simultaneously dispose of both old crafts and Happy Meal toys without their knowledge. If you ask Mandy and the kids, neither of them can remember the last item disposed of unless you prompt them, and even then the memory will by faded: "Yeah, I do kind of remember having a plastic Madagascar penguin figure..." or "Yeah, I do kind of remember having made a green set of pinwheels for St. Patrick's Day..."

In addition to having a spine, I honestly wanted to help Mandy organize her craftroom. Why? A couple of reasons:

1. I'm supportive that way
2. I recognize the benefits of Mandy's crafting and blogging (keeps her from shoe shopping, occasionally gets cool things to sample, etc)
3. I saw her eyeing the area of the basement that houses the TV, foosball, etc (it's a bigger space than her craft room)
4. I thought it might help me get lucky
5. I don't want Mandy to eventually turn into this lady: