overwhelmed

I started the task of re-organizing the studio a couple of weeks ago and am overwhelmed to say the least. How do you toss out things that you've been saving for just the right project? The perfect little snippet of lace, fabric or paper? or the small bare lampshade that will make the perfect art doll dress, the chicken roaster that is the... well, the perfect base to build another art doll. I actually had no idea it was a chicken roaster when I bought it at the thrift store, to me it spoke..."make me an art doll" so into my cart it went.

There are stacks of wall stencils waiting to be used on the fence and the bedroom wall.

There are stacks of beautiful floral prints that are waiting to be decoupaged onto furniture, boxes and journals.

There are dominoes of all sizes and materials waiting to be drilled and decoupaged or painted.

There are boxes of Christmas ornaments waiting to be painted.

There are stacks of round paper machet boxes waiting to become everything from snowmen to beautiful catch-all's.

And, clay pots, and napkin rings, and fabric, and fabric oh and did I mention fabric? Some of it goes back to the 70's.... Good Golly Miss Molly, what was I thinking?

Book shelves full of painting books
Book shelves full of altered art books
Book shelves full of only the BEST magazines. Somerset Studio, Cloth Paper Scissors, Art Doll Quarterly and the like...
Okay, make that a bookcase FULL of them times two.

There are buttons, charms, beads, findings, wire, shells, bottle caps, paint, glue, paper, gell medium and of course Gesso! God, I love gesso.

And I seem to have this thing for paint brushes... Doesn't everyone? They don't??? Really? Can't help it, I do. There is nothing like a fabulous new brush. Then there are the brushes that have been dedicated to glue or gel medium or what have you... I have a few of those too. I'm guessing a few hundred is more like it. I promised myself that I would put a 'grab n go' label on their container(s) meaning I could toss it after I used it. So far that hasn't worked, I'm still washing them out and putting them back..YA me, goin' green.

I'll put a couple of pictures in as my 'before' pictures. It will take me weeks to finish this project at the rate I'm going. So far I have been very good about going in the room at least once a day and finding at least one thing to take out of there and find a new home for either by way of organizing, re purposing or donating... What I am finding so overwhelming is that I want this room to be a place where I can have different work stations. I love creating in this space. The problem is that I want a sewing station, a beading station, a painting station, a soldering station, a paper art station, an art doll station...and on and on...

I am going to make this room work...