With appreciation for Dawn Zimmerman’s post to www.TinyHouseBuild.org, here’s the second of three parts how one person decluttered their life.

As I was going through my knick-knacks and the like, I also went through my decent sized “collection” of art supplies. I had some top notch water color pencils I hadn’t even opened. Paints, drawing pencils, and the like were filling up a tall dresser. Beautiful materials I hadn’t used in over 10 years! I had even collected various other materials that were to be used for mixed media and sculpture pieces in a future that never happened, and wouldn’t happen. I realized as cool as it would be to create those pieces, I had lost interest in making them. I donated all the pill bottles I had been saving over the years to make a sculpture to some missionaries in the D. R. Congo that our church supports. They needed them because the hospital had nothing to put their patients’ medicine in. It amazed me that something so seemingly useless could make such a big difference for someone.

I only kept the supplies I had used here and there over the years. I gave away old artwork that I never looked at anymore to friends who liked the pieces for their walls. One art piece was donated. Both my easels went. It felt good. I even donated the old dresser that had held these art supplies as well as my childhood clothes, and even my dad’s stuff from when he was a boy. Now that dresser will hold someone else’s things and that makes me smile. I cannot tell you how much of a blessing it has been for me to give these things away to folks that will actually use it. When you think about it, for all those years, that tall dresser was storing up someone else’s opportunity to work toward their dreams. I now have most of my art things in two sets of small, plastic, three-drawer storage “dressers” that I already had on hand.

You may start to notice that as Dawn class out all the excess, her spirit and mental state begin to change as well. There are so many benefits to finding a class, hiring a coach, joining a like minded group. Don’t let your own excess stop you – there is help. If you’re wondering just what the best course is for you, drop me a line.