Flirting With Minimalism

Each person has their own concept or belief of what minimalism means and what it consists of to live a minimalist lifestyle. To be honest when I first heard about it I automatically had the stereotypical image that a “Minimalist Lifestyle” = selling all your possessions and living in tiny house that is kept like it is a showroom for a lifestyle magazine with nothing out of place, that is not my kind of home. Investigating more into it the way I understand it now (and this is just my grasp of the concept) it is about living your life with less stuff and borders along the same concepts of Simply Living where you make use more of things you already have without going out to the shops and continuing to buy more. We are all guilty of owning more stuff than we actually need, often you don’t even realise it. First world problem. I’ll be honest if wasn’t for our move and the need to pack everything in boxes I wouldn’t have had a clue of the amount of stuff around us. I certainly never paid attention to things we used and what we didn’t. I used to be pretty frugal but my simple living ways have lapsed a little in recent years.

Can you be a minimalist and still be a crafter?
I have pondered this idea. Crafters have a stash (insert your preferred craft here) You always have supplies and tools for whichever craft/s you part take in. How many tools or supplies you need on hand is up to you. I know personally I have more than I actually need and that is after I purged heaps. So it is possible to be a minimalist crafter? I think yes but you would have to show a little discipline. You would have to decide on a limit to how big you want your stash of supplies and tools to be and try then to maintain that level so it doesn’t get out of control. Some people could be a minimalist crafter. Certainly knowing all the supplies you have on hand would be more cost effective as you wouldn’t be buying duplicates of supplies you know you have “somewhere” but you can’t locate when you need them so you purchase more.

I know the saying is “a leopard cannot change its spots” but I’m flirting with the idea of a minimalist lifestyle when we move to the new place. I know a new building won’t instantly mean old habits are forgotten but it is a fresh chance to try things. Clutter stresses me out. Too much stuff around me stresses me out. My brain just thinks of it as clutter even if it is useful clutter. I want to have less things around me in every room not just in terms of craft. Less things around gives visual clarity which I like. Less stuff means less to clean, although Mr StitchNSew does most of the cleaning. Less stuff means less options to choose from (I do get overwhelmed with too many options) With less things in cupboards or on shelves it means you can put things away easily without playing a juggling act or having things fall on you as you try and stuff it in. I will be honest unless I can put something away easily in one go than I don’t put it away and it will sit on a bench/table/chair creating another pile which needs to be sorted out at some point. I need to find a better way to handle my stuff and that better way might just be to have less stuff in the first place.

What We Actually Use In Pantry

At the moment our place is about 2/3 packed up. We are not down to just the essentials yet but we are not far off it. It has really shown what little we actually use all the time as most of our stuff got packed early January. After I culled the dry goods pantry I noticed really it was to only about half a dozen storage ingredients plus breakfast stuff that we used regularly. The only packed item we have missed is the carving fork for a roast dinner so we used a regular fork. For crafting I have come up with substitutes for cutting out things like using old fashion scissors instead of rotary cutter. I’m not to get rid of the carving fork or rotary cutter but they are examples of how you can be resourceful and use other things when in a situation of not having the right “tool or gadget” to perform a task. It will be interesting when we unpack to remember what we actually have and to rethink if we actually need it or not. The minimalist concept is very appealing.

Cassiy

 

 

 

 

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