Decorator?

Somehow, I'm the only person in my family with an eye for...well, anything! Literally, when we were building our house, I got to pick everything. Wall colors (hence how my room wound up blue...) My mom insisted on having yellow walls, but I got to pick the shade. I even pick my parents' clothes out. I'm not kidding. I also get left in charge of handling our (many, many) assorted knick-knacks.

So these are some pictures of what I've done with them, for inspiration or something. I have so many shells not because I collected them myself, but because I inherited them from my uncle's mother. She was an amazing gal.

Those are our cookbook shelves- the ones without books. We have four that are filled with cookbooks, but the others are my effective playground. (Also, if you're wondering about the snowman in the second to last, he's hanging out in there with the doll till I remember where I put the Christmas boxes...)

Then there's the hutch in the dining room, which was MADE to display random stuff. I have fuuuun with it.

My mom's favorite statues...

They hold glasses, for my mom and quasi-brother.

Aaaand MORE shells!

And then have a picture of my door, and progress on my room.

I swear, it's slowly getting cleaner...

School, Some Clothes, and a Room View

School starts back up for me on the 24th, guys. Senior year. I HAVE FIRST PERIOD OFF EVERY OTHER DAY I AM SO EXCITED.
Um, yeah. xD Figured you might wanna know, or something. The power of being able to sleep in till around nine instead of waking up at six is like heaven.

I mentioned my hair cut...have some pictures of it.

 

The shortness is...different. But I can do a top knot now? My mother told me it looks "weird, but okay". And the necklace is a former earring that I took the hook off of and put on a chain.

I went shopping and you know, bought stuff. Go me.

 




From Forever 21, I got a shirt, some bracelets, nailpolish and a headband. Whoo~

I got a (cheap) pair of earrings, one of which was turned into a pendant. Still deciding what to do with the other. A pair of sunnies identical to my favorite extremely beat up pair, a pair of $5 six-inch heels that I adore, a purse, and a moustache ring. That ring is going to be the first part of a Christmas gift for one of my friends, who has a moustache obsession.

And remember how I was doing stuff to my room? This is the ~current~ view. It'll get cleaner...slowly.

It's changed a bit since I took the picture... less of a mess, the bookcases have received some rearrangement. Does anybody have ideas on what I can do with old CD cases? Like, I keep all my CDs in a bag thing, so the cases have just been collecting dust on my bookcase for /years/ now. I don't wanna toss them, because that's just wasting, but I don't know what to do with them. Ideas?

Anyhow, I'm trying to start getting back in the swing of things. Which is good, since, you know, school starts next week.

Aaah senior year D:

Welcome to the Disaster

...or, as I call it, my bedroom. There are no before pictures, because I don't think anyone wants to see them.

First up, handling the shoes that had been starting to spill off the edges of my shoe racks. Solution? Pretty-ify a shoe box and stick it to the wall, stuff flats in. Hopefully I'll find a sturdier solution later, but for now, I'm not handling an avalanche of shoes.

Then, handling jewelry for each day (since I'm, y'know, trying to wear it). I tacked an old jewelry box to the wall (jee, I like these things...) to dump it in.

My next task included cleaning the area around and under my couch and work table, during which I rediscovered several magazines and an old binder taken from the trash at my mom's old job (who throws out a perfectly good enormous binder like this?? WHO?). Rediscovering old drawings of mine was fun, but the slightly over-sized untouched paper within sparked the idea of gluing on pictures of inspiration to me. From those magazines, of course. (I also discovered my new long-haired favorite. Jane Seymour is amazingly gorgeous!)

 

And some weird folding produced a paper clutch-thing? I have NO clue what to do with it. But I did glue a lock shaped button onto it. I'll...figure something out.

And more things're going to get finished up too, soon. ;)

Reorganizing My Room

When we moved in, my room was a haphazard process of "what boxes can I find" as I tried to live out of them, with a closet devoid of anything to hang stuff on, and half my boxes trapped under my parents' out in the garage. Things got packed onto bookshelves, my desk, my dressers, the floor... Then I added another desk (more of a workstation-y thing, really) and a couch (to protect it from the animals; it's from my grandmother, and my parents have now wholly given up on getting it back from me). Now, all my boxes got unpacked by October of last year, almost an entire year after we moved in. I realize that since I probably only have another year left here, there isn't much of a point to going obsessive over decorating. On the other hand, my parents are pushing me to go to college in the area, and I'm thinking of doing so. I'd certainly save on room and board. ;) So I decided to redecorate my room. Starting with reorganization! I'm terrible at organization and can't think linearly (imagine the hell that math is), so it's kind of become a problem. Especially since I haven't had the time or energy to do much cleaning since November. Fourteen hours at school will do that to you. (Eight hours of school, six of rehearsal). So between the blankets dumped on the floor, clothes I hadn't had the energy to hang up, textbooks strewn on the floor that I need to sell back, and random icing cans (I crave coconut pecan icing when I'm stressed), my room has become an utter mess. My mom says I need FEMA disaster aid. (I don't).

Instead, with a severe amount of added pressure on myself to try some sort of linearity, I've managed to compile a list of things I have to do to get my room clean. I thought I might share it with all those other people who have messy rooms and desperately need to clean/are being hounded by their parent(s) or roomate(s) to do so. (The steps aren't exactly organized...)

1. Sort all clothing/blankets/towels/things that can be stuck in the washing machine without adverse effects. And get them through. Be relentless in it. I, personally, don't do much sorting. Underwear, jeans/denim things, towels/blankets/sheets, sweaters, white t-shirts, everything else. That's my sorting process, and it works for me.
2. Pick up everything else on the floor, dump it on any furniture that will contain it, and clean the floor. And the picking stuff up applies to under the furniture too, as you have to clean under them too.
3. Get all books on floor/bed/other furniture sorted out. This includes your bookcases. If you own a ton of books by one author, give them their own section. Put your most-read books closer to eyelevel, least-read further down. Use the lowest shelves for the legit heavy books, like yearbooks and almanacs. If you have a lot of bookshelves like I do (I have six), feel free to put some sort of weight to hold books back once you finish a section, if there's empty space. Leave it for other books by the author that you might acquire. I've got to clear space to add new Tamora Pierce books, since the shelf they're currently on is all full, for example. If you're trying to get it more decorated-pretty-y, add little figurines and plushies you might have uncovered while revealing your floor.
4. Papers found on the floor? Sort them! Have a recycle bin and a shredder handy, so you can shred the sensitive things (ie receipts, old envelopes) and recycle the insensitive things (ie printed articles you no longer need, that old math worksheet). The stuff you don't want to trash (ie speeches you wrote in high school and need to reuse in college, cool drawing you did), get it organized. Try an accordion file (ie this or this or this), and organize it by subject, age, or something like that.
5. Find someplace to store your shoes and purses (backpacks and luggage included). I own shoe racks and a purse hanger from the Container Store, my backpack has a place next to my door during the school year, and stuffed inside an empty pocket in my luggage when I'm not in school and not travelling. My luggage holds all my art supplies while I'm not travelling.
6. Pack up all your out-of-season clothing from your closet. You know, if you're getting ready for winter, pack up the tank tops and shorts, pull out long pants, tights, and the like; getting ready for summer, do the opposite and get those winter coats bundled the heck out of your life for the moment. It makes space in your closet. Also, before you pack them, try them all on to make sure they fit. Check for any rips/stains/whatever. Fix any you find that you can, and decide if they merit tossing the item. Don't forget mothballs if something like cashmere or wool is going in! If you're totally over it, then donate it.
7. Then try on all the clothes left in your closet/dressers. Same process; check for fit, rips/stains, and either toss or donate anything you can't wear anymore or don't like anymore. Do this with your shoes too, not so much for fit (I'm going to assume you only buy shoes that fit you...) as for "is it falling apart?" and also to check if you're over them. Same process with your underwear, though no donating; straight up toss that stuff if it won't work anymore.
8. Got trash you turned up? If you haven't already, throw it out! Seriously. Actually, this also goes for any ruined books. I've had to throw out books before, thanks to cat pee/shredding. Hence why my kitties don't visit my room anymore. Yes, they're cuddly and very nice to wake up to in the middle of winter when you're cold, but I prefer my books undamaged. You don't want the smell getting into your other books.
9. Go through your makeup, if you have any, and toss anything that's either dead, or that you're over.
10. If you haven't changed your sheets lately, change them.
11. Found any broken figurines, statues, woodcarvings? If you found all the pieces, piece them together with tacky glue or some other craft glue. If you couldn't find all the pieces, toss them.
12. Anything else organizational you think you need to do, like corralling your electrical cords or cleaning out the mugs/glasses/bottles/cans/plates/whatnot that have collected in your room.
13. Enjoy your now-clean room. And try not to let it get that dirty again!

Hopefully that's helpful to everyone else facing this problem. It's currently working for me. (Also, this is why I'm so busy!)