Ah, gentle reader. The garage at Nogglestead is quite a mess. It’s only mostly my fault. As I mentioned and you might remember from years past on this blog, I dabbled in numerous handicrafts back when the television programs Creative Juice and That’s Clever! were on.
I did some beading, I did some glass painting, I did some glass etching, I did some découpage, I made some clocks out of platters and plates, and a bunch of other things. A week or so back, I might have mentioned that I went digging through completed things for a silent auction at church and destroyed some stained glass painted things.
I have not been terribly active in the crafting realm, and that’s partly because the garage is a mess. And part of the reason that it’s a mess is that I accumulated, over the years, materials for projects that I have not completed or done. For instance, I have the slats from the boys’ old bunk beds–they were little 2″ by 1″ (or smaller) sticks that I replaced with two by fours when I built the beds. I believe I’ll woodburn a large design on them, but not yet. I’ve also saved the old hanging lamp from our front porch when I replaced it; I thought I would clean it up and, what? I dunno.
I also saved a large number of wine bottles, jars, and other glass things for etching, stained glass painting, making candles, or something. But over the years, I’ve moved them around a bit when trying to clean the garage, but I’ve not used them. So I recycled a bunch of them, and it looks like I have another bin to sort through and recycle once I clear a path to it.
I’m also considering discarding the stained glass paints I have. Those projects ultimately did not turn out so well. I have a small toaster oven in the garage for curing polymer clays, but most of the stained glass painting I’ve done has been on vases and whatnot, things too large for the toaster oven. And air curing them, which the bottles indicate is an option, has a limited shelf life as I’ve learned. So maybe I should let them go.
Still, it feels a little like I’m giving up on completing these projects. It’s not like giving away books that I think I will never read, but it’s diminishing some possibilities, and for some reason it makes me feel old.
And, I suppose, I could look at it as a step in cleaning up the garage so I have some room to work. Which is likely true, but it’s not a given that the garage will be cleaned in 2024. Or 2025. Let’s not get all up in a hurry in here.
To be sure, it will not look as good as Cedar Sanderson’s craft space. But we have boys aging to men, and we will have an extra bedroom or two likely before I get the garage into any sense of order or even a workshop. Perhaps I can put a desk in one of them and have a workspace.
The next step, or maybe the first: Overcoming laziness and prioritization that puts twee blog posts before meaningful work.
