new year / Clean Slate

The planner nerd in me loves January. It is a new year, a new month, and this time it starts on Monday. It doesn’t get any better than that. For me, January is starting new. I don’t do resolutions anymore, but I love setting goals for the year and planning how to get there.

One of my goals is to get my studio cleaned up in the month of January. We moved into this house in 2020. I’m embarrassed to say this, but this room never got the attention it deserved. I have a lot of excuses. I could even argue that they are all valid. I moved my parents in with us to help take care of my Dad who has dementia. I’m homeschooling my son. I started a new business, and I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD. I don’t have to allow these to be excuses anymore. I can have all these things going on and still have an inviting space to create art. I can’t believe I’m sharing these photos, but I’m all about transparency and I know I’m not the only one that struggles with this.

I want to invite you to join me on this challenge. You probably have an area of your home that has gotten out of control. Maybe it’s your homeschool area or where your kids create art. I want to take this January to walk us both through getting these areas cleaned up. I’m going to talk about your child’s art space, but swap that out for whatever space you want to work on.

So, this week’s challenge (should you choose to accept) is to designate an area for your child’s art space or homeschool. Maybe it is a whole room. Maybe it’s a closet of supplies. Or maybe it is a rolling cart. The important thing is that you designate a space where all this art stuff is going to go. So, this week, just decide what that space is. If this space is currently being used for something else, empty it. If you need to go get a rolling cart or something similar, go do that. We are taking baby steps. So, that is all I want you to do this week.

For me, I have an extra bedroom that is my art studio/craft room/recording studio. To record, I had to move things around, and now my easel is no longer easily accessible. I need to fix that. This room is realistically not big enough for all of those things, so I am planning to re-designate my areas. Since my parents have moved to assisted living now, I am going to take my crafty supplies downstairs. I'm a little hesitant to do this because painting and crafts overlap a lot of times, but I think it will be helpful if I just get all of my scrapbooking stuff out of this room. If you are in a similar situation where you need to use a space that is currently used for something else, remove anything that no longer belongs in that space. Take those things to their new home.

That’s it, but don’t keep your progress to yourself. I want to see your before pictures. Don’t be scared. I mean did you see my pictures?? Share them with me @katkinsstudio on Instagram and Facebook. Not feeling that brave? Hit reply and show just me. I won’t share it, but I want to cheer you on.

We will move to the next step next week. See you then.