Letting Go
I've always been a bit of a pack rat. I'm super nostalgic, and I find sentimental attachment to all sorts of things. I have lofty aspirations to do creative, crafty things with ticket stubs, cards, letters, other random pieces of paper, drawings, old pictures, funny cutouts from magazines... I wouldn't say I'm a hoarder, because I don't like clutter, either. Things get put away, and on a good day, I'm actually pretty proud of how nice my house looks. But in rearranging and reorganizing my craft room, which was kick started by the amazing mirror I got at Ikea, I have decided that I need to be better about letting go of things. Odds are I'm not going to start a project around a picture I decided to print out eight years ago, so why keep it?
Things are slowly looking better in the craft room! Now I can see all my fabric, and the space is feeling more functional than ever. Eventually I think I want to paint it white, too!
Anyway, while cleaning up my space, especially after hanging the mirror, I was thinking that I want the room to be even more functional. I have a nice big table, and my fabric is all neatly folded (for now), and I have a sketch book I use to try to flesh out my ideas, but I don't have a place to visually put things together, leave them there, add to, change, and then re-do for the next project. Sounds like I need something like a cork board, right? Would you believe that there are already TWO hanging in my craft room? But Kathryn, how do you have two big beautiful bulletin boards that do not help you creatively? Isn't that what bulletin boards are for??
In high school, I bought a cork board, which ended up turning into a sort of scrapbook that hangs on my wall. I liked it so much, and kept acquiring stuff, that I bought a second one (same exact size/type), and did the same thing. Remember that list of things I keep from above? I covered these cork boards with odds and ends like movie tickets, fun pictures with friends, silly jokes, etc. Oh, and Disney pins instead of thumbtacks for the most part. I worked hard to cover nearly every square inch of these boards. I tried my best to create a seemingly random layout, though it took me way longer than true randomness ever would, because I was deliberate about my randomness...
A lot of good memories here
While I love the work I did on these boards, I realize they don't fit into the aesthetic I want my creative space to have. I've thought about just buying a new cork board, but then I would have to find new places for these to hang, and I don't want them in our living room, kitchen, bedroom, guest bedroom, or any other place in the house, really. So I've come to the conclusion that it's time to press forward. They've served their purpose, and now they move on to their next purpose: helping me cultivate craftiness in my life, being more adaptable, not just permanent fixtures on the wall.
After stripping the boards of their adornments, I painted the frames black, and lined the edges with sparkly black washi tape. The tape doesn't stick to cork super well, so I used flat gold thumbtacks to keep it in place (I used a tape measure to space them as perfectly as possible). I bought some mini black clothespins and hot glued them to some thumbtacks so I could hang up pictures and inspiration without punching holes in them. I thought it was kinda cute. All in all, it was a fairly inexpensive project. I needed 2 rolls of the tape ($3 each), a pack of thumbtacks ($3), acrylic paint (about $2, but I had some already), mini clothespins ($3 for a pack of 20), a paintbrush and a hot glue gun (I already had the last two supplies). I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, and I'm excited for how they might help my creative process!
Yes, I'm creating a deeper meaning from cork boards from high school. I've never been good at letting go of things, and tackling what to some might be a trivial project feels like a good way to show myself that this is ok. That I can rely on memories and pictures (of COURSE I took pictures of these to immortalize my teenage-self's hard work), and that it's ok for life to change and that sometimes we do need to let go in order to grow and flourish.
So here's to letting go of things that don't serve a purpose anymore. Here's to the fond memories created. Here's to new endeavors, and allowing my creative wings to stretch a little bit farther and easier.
