Do It Yourself; Hiding your Hoarding through Displaying.

My mom is a hoarder.

Okay, maybe not a HOARDER, but she's a shopoholic with way too many candles and costume jewelry.  Everything she has is nice, but it's in boxes and hardly properly displayed.  And it got me thinking, what's the difference between hoarding and collecting?  Well, I decided that is the way in which you display your stuff.

So, when Husband started hassling me about the things I save for upcycling projects, I knew I had to change the way I saved.  I started collecting glass jars from thrift stores and once in a while from craft stores.  These clear and fill-able beauties were and are the key to my non-hoarding system.  I display my save-ables in these glass jars in plain view.  They're sort of a collection within themselves.  I save wine corks to turn into a large project in the brown section of my shelf. I save discarded bullet cases for art projects in a very large glass jar in the gold section of the shelves.  I display my candle collections in correlating color sections.  And, so on... By displaying my raw materials in plain view, I turn my hoards of "trash" into collectables.

I also organize drawers and cabinets with various compartments so everything has it's place.

When my siblings-in-laws move out I will use their current living spaces to display more of my glass collections {my cake stands, drink dispensers and vintage pyrex}.

This way all of my materials are:
1. visible to me, as a reminder to complete projects.
2. displayed as works of art or collections, which is way more socially acceptable than piled up boxes in my closet {or in my mom's case guest rooms and bedrooms}.
3. out of valuable cupboard and drawer spaces in my laundry room or work room, freeing up that space for functional tools and not so display-able materials {like certain fabrics, extracts; which need cool dark spaces, cleaning supplies and guest linnens}

Above: the glass jar hold a collection of discarded and hard to see keys, the metal tins are reusable espresso tins that fit in well with the gray section of my book shelf.

I use these jars for various teas and herbs and display them in the gray section as well.

My stash of red straws fits in well in the red section. 

Blue tip match sticks find their place in the blue section.

Purple straws have a home in the purple section next to a blue framed prom photo {I'm eating an oreo not smoking a cigarette}. 

Green tea lights find a jar next to some photos in the green section.

In the brown and yellow section I have old school pencils, wooden stamps and discarded brass casing from ammo on display.

I also have beige shipping tags and discarded wine corks on display.  

And because I know I'll think of a use for these later, I have orange discarded reward tickets from my classroom.

I have a few more random discarded collections but they're not on display yet, I'm headed to goodwill this week for a few more glass jars to find them a proper home.

Hope this way of displaying certain materials will beautify your home and clear up some much needed hidden spaces.  Good Luck and Happy Collection Crafting!

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DIY Painted Living Room V.I

This is our living room the day we bought the house (notice the pink tint- EVERYWHERE!):

This is our living room the 3rd day after we bought the house (I have some amazing family and friends who helped complete the painting right away!) :
This is what it looks like now, except with a few minor changes, like the picture frame addition below:

The wall with the salvaged picture frames, that my readers voted on a few months ago:

The items in our living room include; a hand me down leather couch (we'd NEVER buy leather), a hand me down coffee table (although, I like my black original ikea one better), a black (originally white) book (DVD) shelf, 2 gifted couture partylite hanging candles, a small original artwork purchased at first fridays, and not pictured: a quilt rack, hand me down wrought iron lamp, a plant (originally tea) cart and NOW a pack and play. I plan on re-doing all the furniture in the living room once Sonja is a few years old and not in the destructive toddler stage, even though most of it will be thrifted. Until then, I'm enjoying my hand me down furniture from our parents. We also plan on busting up the current tile and doing hardwood throughout the house- but that is an expensive project and one that will probably happen in the next 2-4 years. FYI the paint color in the living room is Deep Garnet from Behr in eggshell finish purchased from, you guessed it, Home Depot.