Wow. This blog has been a little neglected. And by ‘little’, I mean that I have not logged on in over four and a half years. YEARS.

Needless to say, a lot has changed in that time. My family moved across the country, my husband switched jobs, we had another baby, and I actually left my little sewing shop to pursue photography full-time. So yes…lots of changes. And of course, with three kids, a one-woman business and a pandemic raging across the country, what do I decide to do? Add one more thing on to my plate, of course, and revisit the idea of this blog.

When I left off, I was in the midst of trying to detox my life of stuff. As a recovering maximalist, the idea of minimalism sounded so very appealing to me. I loved the idea of pursuing simplicity, of whittling down my possessions and ridding myself of clutter. Soon after I wrote my blog post where I revealed the amount of clothing I owned, I did indeed pare down my wardrobe and spend the next year in a mostly-clothing fast.

I learned a lot from that personal challenge. The main habit that stuck with me was an adherence to buying better quality items. I no longer roamed the clearance aisles at Target, looking for great deals on clothing items I could nab for a couple of bucks. In fact, most of my in-person shopping went out the window. Maybe that was me learning from my challenge; maybe it was also me just discovering that loading three kids into car seats is not fun. At all.

But soon after, I started to turn to the lure of online shopping. Shortly before our move, I had cancelled my Amazon Prime membership. I remember at the time wondering how I would do without it, and afterwards feeling very relieved that I really didn’t miss it. But slowly over the years, the appeal of online shopping started to creep back into my life. I think at first it was buying for the kids. But I have this thing where if I spend money once, it’s a lot easier to do it again. So then I tend to go in cycles of shopping, not shopping, shopping, not shopping.

And I have learned that it’s not a completely terrible thing. I don’t need to feel guilty for every purchase that I make. I do tend to purchase things that I actually like and, for the most part, really do use. But this year, I think I am ready to give myself another challenge. With several more years under my belt, I am finding my closet and drawers getting fuller again, and quite honestly, living with three kids, I am so sick of clutter. And although I regularly go through our things and donate items we no longer use, the fact that our space doesn’t feel lighter indicates to me that I am once again starting to creep back to my old habits of donate, buy, donate buy. That unhealthy cycle of not actually utilizing old purchases to their full extent before replacing them with something newer.

So I am back to my old blog to once again say I am ready to take on a new, perhaps even more stringent challenge than before. And I want to use this to document that journey. My hope is that this challenge will be less about stuff. (Isn’t it funny that even the concept of ‘minimalism’ is still geared around stuff?) My goal is to not just downsize my items for the sake of owning less, but to enjoy what I already do have, to put the brakes on the cycle of consuming ever more. I realize that I have more than enough, that I am grateful for what I do own. And for one year, my hope is to cut out unnecessary purchases to enjoy what I already do have to an even fuller extent.

I also hope to share more of my creations in the months ahead–while I will be trying to abstain from non-essential purchases for myself, I have decided I am okay with creating for myself. I simply want to try to use up materials that I already have on hand if possible first.

I hope you’ll join me in this new challenge. I have no idea if anyone still checks in here without my shop to go along with it, but for some reason, putting this all out there in the online universe feels like it makes it a bit more official. So thank you, online world! I’m looking forward to sharing more in the months ahead.