So today I was out and about with Wendy F and we had a wonderful time shopping and checking out the stuff on the sidewalks ready for bulk waste pickup. And yes I know what you are thinking ~ “What is someone, who writes about decluttering and being environmentally friendly, doing shopping and picking up junk off the sidewalks?”

First of all let me tell you that I bought nothing new and of course the stuff on the sidewalk wasn’t new either. So that is the environmentally friendly side taken care of. The items I purchased at the thrift shop were two reels of thread for a friend, some wooden clothes pegs for me to make some product for the art space, some small elastic bands I will use for merchandising at the thrift shop I volunteer at and a photo album to experiment with for a possible storage solution for my cutting dies. I also bought a shop display stand and some baskets for the art space I work at (secondhand from a shop that is closing down). And the items I picked up from the sidewalk were also intended as merchandise displays for the art space.

So as you can see I salvaged lots of stuff for all sorts of reasons other than bringing them home to clutter up my space. If it turns out they aren’t useful for my art space I will donate them to the other art spaces or the thrift shop so someone else can find a use for them. Better that than they get trashed. If there is one thing I enjoy as much as being creative it is repurposing other’s unwanted stuff.

I suppose it could be said that I put myself in a position to make use of things that otherwise might end up unused. And I can tell you that it is uncanny how “the universe provides”, which leads me to another point of this blog post and that is this…

Don’t ever worry about getting rid of things that you think you might need some day. Because, if you are like me, these things will just appear when you need them and for free or for very little cost. Maybe I am just lucky, or maybe I fortunate to have time to seek these things out, but one thing is for sure, they just seem to appear when I have a need for them. Or perhaps I should say a want. So when I feel that something is cluttering up my space, because I have no immediate use for it, it isn’t a hard decision to let it go.

So, as you can tell from my enthusiasm in this post, I had a fun filled day with Wendy F, finding all sorts of treasures that aren’t going to clutter up my home, that will help rather than cause harm to the environment and fill a need I might otherwise have had to spent a lot of money on, or go without. So never fear the old “I might need it some day monster” and let go of all that stuff that is no use to you now or in the near future.

Today’s Mini Mission

See if you can think of an item to declutter that you rarely if ever use, that you keep only because it is a society norm to have one in your home. I don’t have a coffee table, a barbecue, a handbag to match every outfit, eyeshadow or plastic wrap.

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

Eco Tip for the Day

Seek out secondhand items before resorting to buying new. If you have a little patience the thing you need will appear soon enough and much less expensive than buying new.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow