I Cleaned Out My Craft Supply Cabinet, Because I Can't Keep Living a Lie

Yesterday I decided to clean my craft supply area.  This "area" amounts to one tall Ikea storage unit with baskets instead of drawers.  We originally bought this thinking what a great and funky looking file cabinet it would make until we discovered when we got home that file folders did not fit in properly.  Maybe we were supposed to get Ikea file folders, which like all-things-Ikea, are just a little not-standard, just a little "off."  but we didn't and so it just sort of sat there, looking all basket-y and sad.....and Ikea.

Anyway, no worries because I always find a way to use everything which is why I am a hoarder re-purpose-er.  I started carefully and neatly storing my who-knows-why-I-even-have-these-things, otherwise known as my craft supplies.  Ok, first of all, let me finally tell you the truth about me.

NOTE: smelling salts are stored on the right sidebar, second shelf down, next to the anti-fungal cream and the Valium.

Ok, ready?

I am not a crafty person.

I may have told you in the past that I am not a good knitter or that I am a quitter, or that I wouldn't even attempt quilting, all the kinds of things a woman says when she really should just come right out  and admit that she really really sucks at crafts, and everyone else knows she does too.

Yes, I  should have admitted this right from the start and while I was confessing I probably should have also admitted that I  actually passed this handicap down to my daughter, and that it was, one fateful evening when we  were  both  attending a beaded earring workshop at a craft store, that we realized this horrible thing we had in common, the  kind of thing that could happen when first cousins marry.   You see, the "daisy earrings" we were attempting to make came out looking nothing like daisies but like slightly deformed and very sinister Micky Mouse Head earrings, (if you squinted just the right way. ) And both of our earrings looked exactly the same.

I probably also should have told you that I am so bad at crafts that if I ever started a craft and stayed with it longer than a month or so,  my friends and family members would be dreading Christmas and their birthday.  They might console themselves by considering that they may never have to buy a hat again, or a pair of socks, but then realize that they still would because they wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything handmade that I gave them, unless they were going somewhere incognito or to a Halloween party.

But that doesn't mean I don't try.   In fact, it was very obvious to me yesterday, as I sorted through the rubble of material, wool, buttons, thread, knitting and sewing needles, measuring tape, clay, sculpty, stuffing, beads, some fairy wings, sewing patterns (never opened) something that looks like voodoo doll (obviously stored away in the wrong place) and a whole bunch of feathers   (?)  that I had really really been trying, really really hard.  Really.  But that, sadly, I suck completely.

While I was doing all this sorting,  I had a place on the floor where all the stuff that I either couldn't identify, or that I was definitely never going to do a damned thing with EVER AGAIN would go, and from there they would go into a recycling bag.  Now, I love the earth and all, but  not so much that I would take the time to actually separate this stuff into paper and plastic, and even though most of this stuff was certainly classifiable as shit, it would never be considered compostable,  so  all of it would just  have to go into what we lovingly refer to here in Canada as "garbage" (for those in the cheap seats and all you Americans out there this is what you would call "trash.")  Indeed.

Then I placed what I saved (this is another blog post in itself but says way too much about me and most of it is twisted and rather horrifying, so let's just forget about it, ok?) in categories (again, you don't want to know) and placed them back into the basket drawers, neatly closed them and walked away without looking back. (because if you look back the bad spirits will get you and I had just thrown away the voodoo doll, so I'd be screwed.)

And that, my friends, is why I will not buy anything at Ikea again.