Cutting my closet in half and finding freedom

In my last post I shared how I came to wanting to cut my wardrobe in half after a bout of bed bugs. Here, I'll show you how I did it.

First things first, I emptied all those trash bags of clothes onto my bed. I needed to see, in front of me, just how many clothes I truly owned.

I saw before me a horrifying mess of dresses, socks, tshirts, PJs, etc. etc. etc.

My next goal was to look at each item and toss it into either the "keep," "donate," or "maybe" pile. I tried to do it quickly and rip off the bandaid before I had time to convince myself to keep it. 

As soon as I picked up a piece, I asked "Does this bring me joy? Have I worn it recently? Am I keeping it out of guilt? Do I have negative memories associated with this item? Why do I want to hold onto it?" And I was harsh. 

I tried to only keep items that fit into at least two of my "life categories." For example, shirts that paired with a skirt could be business/business-casual, or paired with jeans could be casual. Or dresses I'd wear to class and to church. Or to the office and to class. You get the point. I kept a limited number of "casual only" shirts or "evening only" dresses. The more versatile, the better.

I dumped three Hollister cardigans that had seen better days, but were still in good shape, I had owned them since my senior year of high school, and honestly, as a wife and soon-to-be-in-the-real-world adult, I knew I needed to part with Hollister. It might have been my teenage style, but I'd never shop there now. (No judgement if you still love Hollister - if it brings you joy, keep it!) 

I also dumped two blouses that fit, were cute, and even in the color scheme I like. However, they weren't overly flattering and felt very "boxy" on my short self. They were also winter colors and extremely thin, so I found myself passing them up for a sweater (I live in Southern Michigan and the high right now is 10 degrees) almost every time. Bye bye! 

Here are my piles, top to bottom - "Donate," "Maybe," "Keep." You can't see the full "keep" pile, but it was about as large as the "donate" and "maybe" piles combined.

Once I had sorted everything, I went back through the "maybe" pile and made decisions. I donated most of the maybe pile, only keeping a few items I decided I loved enough to keep.

Then, I took the "keep" pile and folded every item on the bed according to type - dresses, casual tops, cardigans, work-out, work clothes, skirts, pants, PJs, business/church tops, sweaters. That way I could see how many items in each category I owned.

Then it was time to be super harsh. I tried on every item that I hadn't worn in the last two weeks, to make sure I really still loved every last one. Believe it or not, I purged a few things even from the "keep" pile after the try-it-on test. 

Primarily, I dumped my excess pajamas. I kept two summer sets (a tank/short set and a nightgown), and three winter sets (footies, a fuzzy nightgown, and a fuzzy polka-dot set). Let's be honest, we have favorite pajamas and the rest end up rotting in the bottom of a drawer. Time to change! 

As I said "yes" to each item, I hung it up, or rolled it "KonMari-style" in my wicker chest. 

It's all the rage now to have a minimalist/capsule wardrobe, where you only keep "X" number of clothing items and only items that "go" with every other item in your closet. Now, that sounds great in theory, but I had one major problem: I LOVE DRESSES. Seriously. I purged at least 5 of them and still had 24 left in my closet (not to mention 10 skirts). That's 2/3rds of a typical capsule wardrobe just in dresses, and they usually suggest having only one, maybe two dresses. But I wear every single dress I kept (The 24 includes sweater, formal, casual, summer, spring, fall and winter dresses). All of them bring me joy! So, am I crazy for owning 24 dresses? Probably, but no regrets! 

Capsule wardrobe lovers also suggest two or three sweaters. Clearly these people don't live in a cold climate! I have to walk around campus in below-freezing temps and even as much as I love dresses, I don't wear them as often during the month of February. So I kept 8 sweaters, and feel no guilt about it.

After the purge, my clothes neatly and easily fit in my closet. Instead of packing away summer clothes to "make room," I can now fit everything in one place to keep an eye on just how much I have. 

 To the left you can see my wicker chest of work out wear, work clothes (I work part-time as a horticulturist assistant), PJs, pants, and scarves.

My final task was to tackle my atrocious shoe bin. (To the right).

As you can see, finding shoes in said bin was nearly impossible. I'd usually end up frustrated and just pick whatever was on top.

Frustrated no longer!

I purged shoes I didn't wear, that hurt to wear, or that didn't go with nearly everything. Where some girls might have a gazillion pairs of shoes, I have a gazillion dresses, and multi-purpose footwear. I kept one pair of rain boots, snow boots, black dressy booties, brown dress boots, black flats, maroon flats, silver heals, black heals, maroon heals, and two pair of nude heals, as well as two dressy sandals, one pair of shower flip flops and one pair of slippers. (Black and Maroon are my "colors" so to say).

And then, I was done!

I had a giant contractor trash bag of clothes to donate, which included 5 or 6 formal dresses I had purchased from Salvation Army in the past for formal events and wore once. I didn't count each item, but I'm pretty certain I passed on as many clothes as I kept.

I also went through my bathing suits and got rid of the newest one that I felt the most unattractive in. I purged all panty hose that had runs in them. I tossed every sock without a mate. I threw out the panties that, if they are the only clean ones left, make me go do laundry (I don't like doing laundry).

So remember, be harsh, but don't be unrealistic. I kept a pair of "crazy pants" that I got from my aunt that only match one or two shirts I own. However, I wear them often because I love them!

I hope this might have inspired you to also go through your closet and keep only what you love. Maybe t-shirts are your go-to style item. Keep as many as you wear and love. Maybe you only wear jeans. No problem with owning 7 pair (or 17!). The only problem is owning stuff you don't wear.

Be free! 

Bed bugs and the closet purge

It all started with bed bugs.

My husband Casey and I had just gotten our apartment “perfect.” All the pictures were hung, everything had a home, and it finally looked like we were real-live adults. And then I started getting eaten alive by something, which we later diagnosed as bed bugs.

Thankfully the college I attend and we work for hired an exterminator, but we had to wash every single soft, fabric item in our entire home in hot water to kill the bugs. As we shoved our lives into trash bags, I was horrified. The process was grueling and worst of all, embarrassing. How had two singles who had previously occupied 10x10 rooms have so much stuff? How did I have SO MANY CLOTHES?

I blame that partially on the fact I haven’t grown since the 8^th grade. For the past 7 years, every item of clothing I’ve purchased has fit, and continues to fit, so I find it harder to donate them. My mother and I are also bargain-hunters (and I love clothes and ask for them for Christmas and birthdays) so I have a larger number of items than I might have if we bought everything full-price. That, however, was no excuse for the piles of clothing occupying our living room floor after the bed-bug debacle.

Perhaps the best part of the entire incident was that I needed to live out of one trash bag full of clothes for the whole month of exterminating, or risk needing to re-wash all those bags again. I realized after that month that I hardly missed most of the clothes that had stayed packed.

During the bed bug fiasco, my mom had been reading about KonMari, this Japanese-style cleaning method that basically boils down to throwing/donating anything that no longer brings you joy. Particularly, getting rid of anything that you keep out of guilt. I didn’t read the KonMari book myself, but that concept was revolutionary! A lot of times we keep clothes because we spent money on them, someone else spent money on them, we think we might fit into them again someday, we think we should wear a certain style, etc. etc.

Those are bad reasons to keep clothes.

Instead, only keep clothes you love to wear. And what I liked most of all was that this wasn’t a minimalist/capsule wardrobe plan. I always felt guilty reading those blog posts, because I LOVE DRESSES. And those posts always say you should have one, maybe two dresses. Well that’s great, unless you wear dresses 85% of the time. KonMari allows you to keep what you love, and what you love is different for everybody.

So today I went through my entire wardrobe and donated everything that didn’t bring me joy – and cut my closet in half.

See my next post for just how it went down! 

Helping Haitian girls get an education

Hello Ladies!

It's amazing where a Pinterest search will bring you, and in this case it exposed me to an absolutely beautiful ministry for Haitian school girls.

Photo Courtesy of Sew in Peace

I have always had a heart for Haitian children, but I've never gotten the chance to go there myself. And although there are so many ways to offer support financially, I never felt more burdened to take action then when I read this post from Sew in Peace.

Did you know Haitian school girls miss some 45 days a year because of their periods? Unlike American women who can go to almost any store and find 100 different products for their cycles, these girls don't have that luxury. That's why Sew in Peace, in conjunction with Mission Possible, bring cloth pads to these school girls in beautiful packages that include pain medication, soap, and new underwear. They also teach the girls about how to take care of their bodies.

Photo Courtesy of Sew in Peace - finished pack for Haitian girls

The site includes a tutorial on how to make these cloth pads and send them to these girls in need, so they no longer have to miss school because of pain or lack of sanitary protection. How beautiful!

If you are wondering how cloth pads work, check out this site that discusses the pros of cloth pads. A set of 10 pads can last one girl a whole year because they can wash and reuse them.

After I read about this great project, I hopped in the car and headed to JoAnn Fabrics - these pads are remarkably simple to make and are such a blessing to these girls. (You need only VERY basic sewing skills to make them).

I'd love your help and here's how you can:

1. Go to the tutorial, purchase the supplies, make and send your own cloth pads.

Finished pad with snap closure (from now on, I'll be using plastic snaps)

2. Donate supplies - do you have some thick 100% cotton flannel you aren't using? Would you like to purchase some 100% cotton batting or bamboo batting? You can go here and buy some size 20 colorful snaps to keep the pads in place. Even some all-purpose thread would make a huge difference. Mail it to me and I can take your supplies and turn them into the pads (I'll send you pictures when I'm done!) - just email me at nataliecdemacedo@gmail.com for my address.

3. Donate money. I will use the money to purchase supplies or to cover the cost of shipping the finished pads to Sew in Peace. Or, you can send the money directly to Sew in Peace and they will use it for their trip to Haiti in February.

4. Live in Hillsdale? I'm working on getting a group of women together to work on these each week - even if you can't sew, but can cut out simple shapes or trace them, I would love your help! I'm also looking for someone with a sewing machine I can borrow while I'm back at school.

Tracing the pattern onto the flannel

One yard of flannel and one yard of cotton batting can make 12 pads - more than enough for one Haitian school girl. JoAnn's red tag flannel was only $1.50/yd. and the batting was on sale for $8.99/2 yds. (Warm and Natural). Each pad costs under $1 to make, depending, of course, on the cost of the flannel and batting.

You can fit 10 pads in the smallest Priority Mail box from the Post Office, which ships for a little more than $5.

Flannel cut and ironed, ready for batting and sewing!

I've already made 32 to ship to Haiti and I'd love it if we could send more and help these ladies get a great education.

**Please Note: Sew in Peace does not accept any used fabric (from used clothing or sheets).

Finished pad, opened 

Stop and Smell the Roses

I started up a new summer internship, which means for the past month I've been focused on commuter life and not so much on homesteading. However, with this long weekend, I found a new project.

Book page flowers!

I love flowers - particularly roses. But roses are expensive and unfortunately they die. Pinterest to the rescue.

What is more quaint, vintage and crafty than roses made from old book pages?

Somehow I managed to get my second cold of the summer and despite being an adult, my mother insisted I stay home from church and not spread germs to the entire congregation. So I opened the windows, turned on quiet hymns, and crafted not one, but a dozen paper roses.

It was a calming way to relax and meditate on the beauty of nature and the grace of God. Monday is just around the corner, but if you'd like to try your hand at these next weekend or during a quiet moment this week, here's how.

You'll need:

1. Book pages (from any book you don't want or read)
2. Scissors
3. Cotton swabs
4. Hot glue gun and glue sticks
5. Flower tape
6. Fake stems
7. Vase

First Step:

You will need five different sizes of petals, from about 1/2 inch to 2 inches wise and 1 to 2 inches tall, depending on how large you want your rose. Mine are about 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter.

Cut the paper in rounded petal designs, but don't worry about making them all the same. In fact, I'd suggest creating different variations for each rose, to keep them pretty and natural.

You can stack multiple book pages to cut out more than one petal of each size at a time, which might save your sanity, so I'd suggest it.

Each rose takes about 3 - 5 petals in each of the five sizes.

Second Step:

Using a cotton swab as your base, wrap one longer petal around in a tube shape and glue it down, as shown:

Third Step:

Roll the top of your smallest petal size about halfway down:

Fourth Step:

Pinch the bottom to create a rounded petal and glue onto the base. The 3 - 4 smallest petals should fold inward, covering the middle base.

Example of pinching with a larger petal for detail

For the Rest:

Roll, pinch and glue each successive petal, but instead of folding inward, fold out. I found it easiest to use scissors to curl the edges (like you would gift ribbon). There really isn't a science to this, you just fill them in where they look best.

Curled outward using the scissor method

In the end, you will have this:

The bottom:

You can purchase green flower tape and stems to seal your bases and have a nice long stem. I don't have any yet, so mine are just resting on the cotton swabs. I'll update once I get the supplies!

Finally, find a vase (mason jars are my favorite), twine, ribbon or lace and create a nice home for your bouquet! Perfect for your counter top or bedside table and no watering required.

If you love these but would rather have someone else make them - let me know! I'll ask for enough money to cover supplies and a little labor, but I can make them out of any paper you'd like. It takes about 20 minutes start - to - finish for each rose!

Happy Summer :)

Success Tastes Good

So yes, my homesteading exploits have resulted in some marked failures. However, every now and again something goes wonderfully right.

In this case, it was Honey Oat bread and Sweet Potato Fries! (Not eaten together, of course)

Although my Pilgrim upbringing taught me to kneed and bake bread in an oven that you heat by building a fire within it, I decided to try the 21st century on and bake some in a new-fangled breach machine (that my mother has owned most of her married life, haha).

I found a recipe online for how to bake this in the oven, but I simply put the ingredients in my bread machine and let it cook. (SO much easier and faster than the 17th-century method, but without the epic smoky taste).

In the end, it looked like this:

I did substitute a 5.3 oz container of vanilla Greek yogurt for the 8 oz. of plain yogurt and used about half the allotted honey because that was all we had. It turned out delicious and everyone ate it. My brother said it tasted like pilgrim bread, which was a huge success. In the end, the bread was dense and filling!

Sweet potato fries were a new frontier in our house. My mother isn't a huge fan of said potatoes, but she let me use the olive oil, salt and pepper to flavor thin slices of sweet potato.

I baked them until golden (25ish minutes at 350 degrees F). My sister and mom still weren't huge fans, but my dad went back for seconds, so I'd say that was a success! Regardless, I love sweet potato fries, so I'll make them for myself!

Yum!

Conditioning lotion bars are NOT for hair

You may have just read my last post about my failed attempts at making dandelion syrup. What you might not have noticed is the terrible stringy/oily look of my hair in that last picture.

If you happened to be so observant, I'll offer up an explanation: homemade conditioner. Turns out the bar is fantastic as a body lotion and shaving cream. My legs have never been smoother! However, even a tiny amount of my conditioning bar resulted in horribly moisturized hair.

Check out this picture of my hair after drying all night AND being straightened:

Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

As you can see from my eyeball peeking out, I was less than amused. However, my mother and I were headed out in an hour to go BJ's grocery shopping. My solution? Corn starch. Yep, I ran about 1/2 cup of corn starch through my hair and brushed it out. Here is the before and after:

After tying it in a ponytail, it at least held up until I got home! Then I washed it and still had oily hair and ended up shampooing with my "old" shampoo three times before I could bear to go out in public. Lesson? Homemade shampoo has enough moisturizing ability that extra conditioner is absolutely NOT needed. Unless, of course, you are going for the greasy-I-forgot-to-shower look.

However, you still need one of these conditioning bars! Why? Like I said, it made my legs feel silky smooth after shaving with it. See below for how to make your own.

You will need:

1 small container

Coconut oil

Olive oil

Essential oil

Crock Pot

I am using a recycled Greek yogurt container. I made a very small bar because I was just testing this out, but the container provided a cute round mold for the conditioning bar.

Take some coconut oil, 1 tsp of olive oil (mine was infused with coffee beans) and 1 tsp of vanilla essential oil in jojoba oil and melt it together.

I bought my coconut oil from Soaper's Choice. It was $23 (shipping and handling included) for 7 lbs, which is by far the best deal. However, you can buy smaller amounts at any grocery store. Keep in mind most coconut oil melts at 76 degrees, but this one melts at 92 degrees. The higher melting point means the bar stays solid. If you use the 76 degrees, it might melt in the shower!

I'm not sure whose brilliant idea it was to put a solid into a pour-top container, so I just cut the top off!

Once everything is melted together, pour it into your container (using recycled containers is good stewardship of the earth!)

I stuck mine in the fridge to harden because it was already 8 p.m. by the time I had poured the conditioner. It was ready for a shower by my 9:30 ish bed time (haha).

It popped right out of the container and looked like this. What a cute bar!

If you wanted, you could probably add some natural colorant, but a white bar didn't bother me and it smelled like a French Vanilla Coffee! So yes, I tried rubbing it in my hands and massaging it onto the tips of my hair, but we saw how that worked...

But I also rubbed it on my legs and used it as shaving cream. My legs felt so soft and moisturized right out of the shower - no need for extra lotion! So go make your own, or better yet, for a couple dollars I'll make you one! :) 

Dandelion Syrup Failure

So, it sure is fun to share your successes for all to see, but as my dad taught me, you have to be willing to laugh at yourself. Today has been a day of, well, "failures" as far as my projects go.

Did you happen to see my first attempt at dandelion syrup?

Shockingly, I managed to get the pot clean and my mother graciously allowed me a second attempt.

I scavenged for more untreated dandelions, took the flowers, pulled out the petals, soaked them overnight and then strained the flowers out:

Here is what the water looked like before and after adding sugar and honey:

Mom and I stood over the pan for over an hour, carefully ensuring nothing burned. Finally, when it looked like this, we decided to pour it into mason jars.

Problem was, as soon as the mixture cooled, it started expanding like a volcano! Here is a great shot my brother got me attempting damage control:

In the end, I scraped out what I could and plan to make it into a sugar body scrub (hate to be wasteful!) and the rest took a hot bath until it all fizzled away to crispy sugar heaven.

I got a good laugh - I think dandelion syrup and I might have to break up.

So yes, that's a fail! My second failure? Stick around and I'll show you =)