Episode 411 – When Creativity Breeds Clutter with Inner Hub member Lori

Ingrid: In this episode, I'm going to chat all things sewing, crafting, and fabrics with Declutter Hub member Lori. Lori is going to tell us all about how she's tackling her basement room of doom, which is filled with sewing supplies, fabrics, costumes, and creative projects collected over many years. Lori is a junior high choral and theater teacher, and she's known for her elaborate classroom decor and custom costuming. But with a busy schedule and several sewing room moves over the years, her basement filled up with clutter. will share how she's in the middle of reclaiming her basement area and creating a functional storage space

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Well, hello and welcome, Lori. Thank you so much for being here for you very, very early.

And I'm like, I was just saying how impressed I was that you look so radiant at like 4:30 in the morning and that I'm, I could never do a podcast and have, and look so glamorous at that time of day.

Lori: Well, it's my pleasure to be here with you

Ingrid: Oh, thank you so much. Now, you have a lot of things going on in your life, right? Because you're a teacher, you're a mom, you're a grandmother, you sing in a famous choir. Now, unfortunately, when you're on, like, a recording, we can't sing together, but I'm like, "Oh, this is amazing." And you can probably sing a lot better than me and Lesley because we, we, we just sing a bit for fun, but you're, like, in a world-famous choir, aren't you?

Lori: I am. It's really an awesome experience, so I love it

Ingrid: So tell us all about this choir. What's the choir? What do you do? Where do you go? Because I, I just wanna know this for myself because I love it.

Lori: it's called The Tabernacle Choir on Temple Square, and I, I sing second soprano, which is awesome, which means that we get to harmonize, but I don't have to worry about the high notes, which is great.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: sing, weekly on a broadcast called Music & the Spoken Word on, international television.

We just opened up in Africa. and then we've been on this world tour where we've gone to, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Argentina, Brazil. we're going to Hollywood in a couple of weeks, so that'll be really fun, too. And I've had a chance to go to Europe and all different places with them, so it's been great

Ingrid: Oh my gosh, that's absolutely amazing. I mean, I'm going to Switzerland, over the summer with, with Rock Choir, which already feels like so awesome, but you've literally traveled the world, so that's so amazing. And I'm, I'm definitely gonna be, and finding out more because I was like, when you said, "I'm in a world-renowned choir," I'm like, "Oh, this is so interesting." But of course, we're here to talk about not choirs, we're here to talk about clutter, and mainly, of course, because you are a super, like, awesome, creative soul, aren't you? So tell us a bit more, 'cause you're a teacher, but you are doing, theater and costume and singing. So tell us a little bit about that.

Lori: Well, I teach at a junior high, which is 12 to 15-year-olds,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: I teach choir and theater, and so I direct the musical. and so one of the things is my choir room is, I fill it with... I surround them. So, like, this year it was a castle, and so I had a whole three-dimensional castle off a 40-foot wall, and then the front was, like, embroidered panels, like you're in the interior of a castle, and I made a knight costume for my knight that guarded the kids.

And, they come in and they feel like it's Disneyland. And, it's really been awesome. I've done, boats and cityscapes and all kinds of craziness. So that's my passion, is my classroom. and then 12 to 15-year-old bodies do not fit into regular-sized clothing for costumes. They are tiny like children, but they're taller than children's clothes, and they're smaller than adult bodies, all different sizes.

So I started custom costuming, my students for their productions, and that just turned into a passion over the last 15 years and, and now I do a lot of designing and costuming all the time, so.

Ingrid: It's incredible. And honestly, I just thought, you know, okay, you know, this sounds interesting because of course you're here because you're in, a member in the Declutter Hub, and you're decluttering your basement, and we're gonna talk more about that. But you then shared, Ingrid, I actually have a whole like Facebook page with my costumes.

So I thought, "Just let me have a look." I was like blown away. I'm like totally blown away. So if people wanna see your costume costuming, that's like really a tongue twister by the way, where can they go? Because I think mo- people need to see this. This is like you're not just saying this, you're actually really doing this. Where can they see some of your creations, Lori?

Lori: I have a Facebook page called Costuming Creations,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: that's because I got tired of my regular page being swamped with, "Hey, look what I'm making today." My friend said, "Make another page so that we can put that someplace else." And so, we do everything from a transforming Cinderella costume to just the crazy details of Aladdin and, you know, lots of, lots of really fun things

Ingrid: I know. Honestly, I was blown away. And this is like, I thought you were like... was like, I had to remind myself that you're, I mean, of course you're like now a seamstress and creator, but I was like, "This is a high school teacher, like, totally going all out for her students." This is like, this must be a total passion of yours because it looks incredible

Lori: It really is, and it's so much fun. And it's exciting when a kid puts on a dress and starts twirling down the hallway. You, makes you feel really good. So it's awesome

Ingrid: Totally amazing. So have you always had this passion for of decorating your classroom, creation, sewing, or is it kind of the sewing came with the kind of teacher bit? Or have you from when you were young always been sewing?

Lori: I learned to sew when I was young, but I wasn't very good at it. And so I didn't like to sew. It sort of evolved out of a necessity, and then I wanted to learn more, so I studied a lot. I'm a good proponent in, wanting to research everything, and I just kept going, and suddenly I loved what I was doing, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and, and crazier and crazier.

So I learned to make hats and learned to do all kinds of things, and, it's just turned into a really fun passion

Ingrid: And is m- is most of your, are most of your materials at school? Or actually have you over the years kind of built up like a whole stack of stuff at home that you wa- and then you kind of take bits into school? Or have you got some secret areas at school that you've been able to claim for all of your

Lori: Well, for my classroom supplies, because that's on my dime,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: then, my husband and I, we got a shed, and we decided to put everything that I decorated with into that shed because I reuse a lot of things.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: but the, fabrics and things for the school, I do have a location at the school to store that, and then we put, swatches onto cards.

And so I shop through the swatches of things left over, and we try to buy just what we need for the school.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: and so we do have a collection at the school,

Ingrid: Okay. Wow. So you have got two places where you're keeping all of your material. So how do you then keep track of what's where, or do you... I mean, I can imagine that things kind of go l- get lost in transit sometimes.

Lori: Well, usually what happens is that, y- I used to have a storage area in my basement that I kept the school stuff 'cause I didn't have a place to put it, and when they gave me a better storage facility, I'm like, "That is all going out of my basement and going to the school," and I'm... And so I just go there, open, bin number three, which has this in it, and I get what I need, bring it home and work on it.

and then I put what's left over back into bin three, so it's nice

Ingrid: Okay. So where do you keep tr- so bin number three, so container, basket, box number three. So have you got like a running list or something of

Lori: I,

Ingrid: in where?

Lori: I do. I have,

Ingrid: Oh.

Lori: spreadsheet.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: and then I also, as I said, these swatch cards, they will say, They'll have a little snippet of the fabric, and it's stapled, and it says, "In bin three, I have seven yards of this particular fabric." and that way I can keep track of, what's there, and I know what the school stuff is, and it keeps, keeps track of it, so

Ingrid: That is very, very impressive. So you're very organised around that. And looking at the room behind you, it looks absolutely beautiful. I don't know if you're listening to this on, like, your, your, like, a, a podcast player, you might wanna tune into our, YouTube channel and have a look at, at Lori's beautiful sewing room because especially, of course, the, the kind of thread holders, on your right on the wall, beautifully color-coordinated, Lori.

Lori: Oh, it makes my heart happy to color coordinate. I haven't quite gotten all my fabric color coordinated yet, but that's coming, so,

Ingrid: Wow.

Lori: which is really fun. Yeah

Ingrid: So the, the room you're in now looks very tidy. we're definitely gonna talk about your basement and how that came about, but this is not your first sewing room, is it? You've been kind of moving around your house. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Lori: Well, my husband and I were both kind of tired of living through the sewing moments. We have a season that's called the musical season, and it's, essentially September through November, and I would take over the whole house. and so my, son moved out, so I took over his bedroom as my sewing room for the very first time.

It was wonderful. Then he decided to move back. and so then I moved down into the living room, which was my sewing space for a little while. and my other son got married, and so my daughter moved to his room. I moved into my daughter's space, which is this tiny little room, and, it still took over the house because I, you know, there just wasn't room to spread out and do things.

And so, just this past November, we decided to finish off, two rooms in our basement, and we opened the two rooms to a single room and made a great big sewing studio. And so I'm feeling like I'm in heaven. It's awesome. It's wonderful to have all this space. And all the sequins and everything that I cut out will not be on my kitchen floor anymore.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: stay downstairs , and so it's really helpful

Ingrid: so basically you've basically now are on, in your basement level. E- so there's no more stuff in your old daughter's room and in your living room. It's now all on one floor all together,

Lori: Yes

Ingrid: the room you're in now used to be two rooms, but that's now, like... Because you have a lot of equip- So what kind of machines have you got?

Because the people who are crafters and sewers know this. I have no idea. I just think one sewing machine should be plenty. you have a big room there, so what kind of things do you have and do you work with?

Lori: well, I've, I have industrial sewing machine that goes super fast.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: and I have an industrial serger, and I have a couple of embroidery machines.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: my newest fun acquisition is a 15-needle embroidery machine, so it's kind of scary to me 'cause it's brand new to me. But, and then I have regular home sewing machines and sergers and things.

I, have, several people who like to, come and sew for the school, and I, I'm excited for them to be able to come into my room and sew in here with me, so that will be great

Ingrid: Right. So basically this is really your sewing room. You've got your threads there, but you've got your supplies at another place, right? Is that

Lori: I do. There was an area that was supposed to be a bathroom, and I'm like, "Well, we don't need another bathroom down here. I want the space." So we walled it as a closet so that if we ever wanna put a bathroom in, we can. But that closet holds all my supplies, which are everything from zippers and elastic and buttons and all of that.

That's all in there. So it's really nice to have that there.

Ingrid: that's in your separate closet, but

Lori: Uh-huh.

Ingrid: where your fabrics are,

Lori: No. The fabric is in, a larger area of our basement. The entire basement was basically the place where we couldn't make a decision on when to die. And so for years it was, "I don't know what to do with that. Put it in the basement." And, those decisions never got made.

And so suddenly three rooms got shoved into the one big room, and we've been trying to dig our way out of that room. and so that's been part of this process also

Ingrid: Got it. Got it. Well, let's go for a break. I, of course, want to know more about how Lori, indeed how this whole project went and how she did it. So let's go for a break and we'll, we'll ask some more questions

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I'm chatting to Declutter Hub member Lori, who is absolutely at costuming, theater, singing as well, and she absolutely makes the most wonderful creations for her junior high, class, who she does the musical with. And we've been talking about, like, how do you do all of this when you are so passionate about in school, but she also loves to do all of the, all of the work at home. she was in different parts of her house. Now she's in the basement, and she's created this gorgeous room with all of this machinery and equipment. So that must have been quite a thing, right? To go, "Okay, let's turn two-thirds of this basement into a whole sewing room." That alone must have been an, a crazy project

Lori: It was really awesome. I didn't know how fast it was going to go because we hired a contractor and he just did a lovely job and boom, it was done in, like six weeks. I'm like, "Wow, this is amazing." so it's been thrilling to... But I've been slow in moving in 'cause I was not going to move, just move everything down.

I thought, "No, no, no, no. This is gonna go in one by one to make sure that it, it's, organised and..." Because I, I can build things better when my mind is settled, and my mind is settled when my things are organised.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: and it gets chaotic in the middle of the process, but if I'm starting it and I'm like, "Where are my scissors?

Where did the pins go? What happened to this? I don't know where this is." and I'll find myself rebuying things 'cause I can't find them. And so,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm

Lori: I wanted to make sure this was a space where I could find everything

Ingrid: Yeah. And of course, like you said, to build this space, the stuff that was in this room had to be moved somewhere else, right? To that other one-third that's now kind of a massive storage area,

Lori: Yes

Ingrid: and that's the one that you've been right?

Lori: And just prior to doing this, it was almost embarrassing to have the contractor come down and have these huge full rooms that were, filled with different things and try to get measurements, and I thought, "Ugh." So, we started, organizing different things and into different categories.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: and school items, got put back to the school and, my other things went out to, One piece at a time would go to the shed, and we would organize it. I love spreadsheets and so we would... Everything we put in a bin had to be something I really wanted. And so I discovered there were a lot of things I did not want.

And so I think about half of it so far has left my home, which is wonderful. So I'm so excited. So it's either gone to... We have a van and, so one... Each time we would fill the van, once would be to the dump to, with garbage and things. and one time would be to, a donation center. And so it was like, which one are we filling the van with today?

You know? And we've donated a lot of things to people and also to the donation center, so that other people can get, some joy out of all the stuff we've been storing forever

Ingrid: Yeah. So what kind of things did you not want? How did you decide that? Did you kind of had to first kind of think to yourself, is the, is it that I want?" Or did you just kind of more go, did you kind of ponder the project, as we call it here in the Declutter Hub, or did you kinda go, "Every time I came across something, then I knew, I could decide there and then"?

Because I can imagine that creative people can see a good use of, like, everything, right? So how did you figure that out?

Lori: So that's such a hard thing. And, so one of the things we did is I did have some things categorized, like all the camping gear and all the, you know, this has been where everything's been. so some things were easy to get rid of, like some old camping gear. And I laugh because my sons are, like, 30, I'm think- think, like, 32, 33, and, like...

And we had things from when they were in Cub Scouts, which is, like, eight and nine years old. And I'm like, so their little day packs and things. So, it was easy to just donate a bunch of camping gear. we had a lot of electronics. Oh, I think I'm terrible. It's like you talk about putting the, appliance down in your basement for what if.

Once you've replaced it, oh, we had electronics. and we had to find different places to, recycle some of those. and so some things, it was like a whole load of, like, old printers and monitors and, you know, and things like that. And, so kinda just category by category.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: then that made the decision easier.

But we have boxes my husband and I have carried around since we got married a long time ago that we've never opened, and when I open them, it's like, "I only want one thing in this entire box , and we've had it in the basement for 30 years," you know? So, you know, that's been good. But there are hard decisions on this is a perfectly good craft item.

It could make a great prop.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: kinds of things are harder to decide. And I thought, "Okay, if I wanted this, would I even know if I had it?

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: or would I even look for it?

Ingrid: Mm-hmm

Lori: would I..." And I'm like, "If I didn't realize I had it, then I didn't miss it."

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: and so that helped, to declutter some things.

Ingrid: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I love, I love your honesty about, you know, we had boxes that have been here for 30 years, because that's the thing is that life is, goes by at such a massive speed, and when you also often, not always, but sometimes move to a bigger house, you've got the space and you think, "We're just gonna put it down there and we'll look at it another time," and then suddenly the time's got caught up with you.

And some things must be indeed easy, like, "I only wanna keep one thing." But of course, you come across other things as well that you think, "Oh, wow," especially when you're a creative person. Like, are, am I sure I'm not gonna use this or need this for a future project that I'm gonna do in my classroom or the musical that we're doing? So those, you must be really realistic and honest, right? Where am I gonna put it? Is it still in good condition? And all of the things

Lori: Well, I think that, as you and Lesley talk about the decluttering muscle, I haven't been tackling this basement. I've been working through my house for the last six years, kind of closet and room by room. my first room I did was my kitchen. and I didn't realise as a teacher, we get given a lot of mugs.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: And I told... Ha- sat down with my family and said, "Okay, everybody choose your three favorites," and then,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: you know. And so I've been going closet by closet. sentimental is hard. You get a lot of little gifts and letters, and there's a little bit of guilt, giving... getting rid of maybe, a gift you've been given as a teacher.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: but you're like, "Where am I going to store that if I'm not displaying that?" so there have been some really hard decisions. I,

Ingrid: Hmm

Lori: have some boxes of sentimental that I've put up in my former sewing room to... for another day,

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah

Lori: that I, I can't make decisions about, right now. And I thought, "Let me do the easy wins.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: let me not, do the hard things right away."

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: and but that's helped. But I've decided aspirational things, am I ever going to go back into canning and bottling food? no. I gave a lot of my canning equipment away to people who are active in that. So,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: you know, it helps that way.

Ingrid: you're really kind of looking at where am I li- where's my life now? What do I see me using now and in the future? But not like I did that in the past, but I'm cl- clinging onto it if I ever, maybe one day, get back to it, because have to make decisions at one point, right?

Lori: You do. And I thought I want the space

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: what I'm doing now more than a box that I don't even know what's in it, so

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. Love that. So all the stuff was in that one part in your, in your basement and I've s- you've been really fantastic in sharing, pictures i- inside our inner hub, of your progress because we need to talk about your love for fabrics, Lori, because you have a lot of fabrics

Lori: I do. I am trying to move towards my, I'm calling it my five-year plan,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: opening a fabric store when I retire from teaching. And so I've got a lot of curated fabrics. we have a, we had a large chain fabric store that would sell a- apparel fabrics that closed here in the United States,

Ingrid: Wow. Okay

Lori: it, there's only about three shops in the entire state of Utah that carry apparel fabric, and, that are decent.

There's like a little tiny bit here and there. All I sew is apparel, so I sew clothing for myself and others, and so I, curate a lot of clothing fabric, in anticipation of opening up this shop. And so this has been something that I've done deliberately,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: over the last year and a half or so

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. And of course, doing that, it's, the clearing of the basement so you can get the shelves ready. I know you've also, you've now been working on covering your ceiling, so it really starts to really look more like a really curated storage area. But it must make life for you now, the middle of musical season and all of that, and, and creator season, so much easier

Lori: Well, I'm so excited because I haven't gone through a musical season with this room yet, so I'm really excited to be able to spread out this year. I did do a play, this spring, and I had all this room, and I thought, "Oh, this is wonderful."

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: so it's been really great, and people can come into my sewing room, and it's not a, "Aah, you're in my little, tiny, crowded space,"

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: so

Ingrid: You really have that, that big picture goal firmly in mind, right? Like, this is why I'm doing this, and it's not only the five-year plan, of course. That's your big, big picture goal, your end goal.

Lori: Yes

Ingrid: your current situation and how you're improving it, the, the, the space over the stuff and having then the stuff really well organized, you can get so much more pleasure and enjoyment out of all the work and the, and the hobbies and of course the work for school that you're doing

Lori: Yes, I love, I love my space. It's really coming along.

Ingrid: Hmm.

Lori: when I can go to do a project and I know right where my stuff is, I don't have to spend an hour going, "Where's that zipper?" and it just makes, what I do so much more enjoyable,

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah

Lori: and so peaceful. And, and so my enjoyment of sewing and building is one thing, but being able to do so easily is really wonderful.

It's really great

Ingrid: Yeah. really, I think, less is more. And al- although you have a lot of stuff, because now the, the, the things that you don't use are slowly but surely taken out, so you can get so much more organised. And that's in the end what we want, right? People who love crafting, whether it's sewing, knitting, crocheting, applique, whatever it is, like, if you just keep buying all the materials because you can't find it or because it's buried somewhere, a massive cost involved, first of all, in all of that. But then you get so busy trying to find the things you need all the time, that it actually gets taken away from the time to enjoy the craft and the work.

Lori: That's so true. And I so, so often I'd be, like, in the middle of a project and I'm like, "I know I got that. Where did I put that?" And it's maybe underneath a pile over here, and I end up with so little space. I had little piles of everything everywhere, and I couldn't find something. Then I have to order it because there's no place to buy it here,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: wait a few days for another zipper or another, you know.

So this has been really great to be able to say, "No, I have what I need, and I'm ready to go."

Ingrid: Yeah, definitely. So how are you organising all of your fabrics? I mean, I know because I've seen the pictures, but I would love you to tell our listeners how you're doing that, because we're not talking about a couple of rolls of fabric here. We this is like, this is next level,

Lori: Oh, we're talking thousands of yards of fabric. Yes, we are. so, smaller batches of fabric, I've been getting these, there's like this corrugated plastic like they use for the little yard signs. and it comes in, in these little, like I would say nine by 12 or something, and I roll them up on these mini bolts.

And so I put the mini bolts onto, shelving. And so I have all these bookshelves that I've made into shelving, and then I just recently, purchased a couple of Kallax units and I put them back to back with a piece of beadboard between them so that they don't go through, and, and, that's been great.

I do have rolled fabric, and when our store closed, I actually bought their rolled fabric holders, so that's what's going to go in the back of my room when I finish,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: doing it, and then they can go actually on the rolled fabric holders. And so I... It's so wonderful to just go in there and go, "Oh, what would I like to have today?"

It's my own little mini store in there, so it's really wonderful

Ingrid: A- and just for the really kind of the, the, the, the, the, the very detail then, so have you got it under color-coordinated or have you like, okay, this is like a thinner fabric and this is my category of thin fabric, so I've got it all there, and this is my category of, I don't know, more velvety fabric, and I've got it in color there?

H- or have you like, no, it doesn't matter what fabric it is, long as it's in the right color? How does that work?

Lori: what I've done in the past, right now, I took all the fabric off the shelves and put them in bins when they were working on the room, and I've just barely just folded everything. So it's a mishmash all over right now. But when I go to redo it, I'm going to do it by type and by color. So I'll do, like, cottons here and knits here and velvets here and lace here and brocades, and do it by the type of fabric.

I used to do it completely by color,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm

Lori: and so I had all of one color no matter what type of fabric it was. But I think I'm gonna, change that up a little bit, and then I'll color coordinate it 'cause that just makes me happy.

Ingrid: Talking about color coordination, you shared with us that you created a secret door. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I think we were all, like, blown away. What happened?

Lori: Well, they finished my lovely basement, but I have a larger basement space that cannot be finished off because it's lower ceiling as far as a livable room.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: this doorway that doesn't fit a standard door. and it's wide, and it's just a little shorter. And I, and I thought, "How am I gonna keep the cold air from that area getting into my nice, warm, new space?"

And like, "We're gonna need a door." I thought, "Oh, this would be the perfect place to put, like a bookshelf sort of thing for all this, thread storage." I thought, "I'm gonna make a hidden door." So I actually took, some bead board and built my own custom thread cabinet on it, and then we worked it out how to frame that up so that it closes off that area.

but then it looks like it's just a thread storage, like my basement ends right there. And it's really fun. That was my ... It was a really fun creation to put together, and even my contractor came back later and looked at it. He goes, "That's really awesome." So it's been really fun.

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. You must be quite handy with, like, some tools as well then, Lori, if you can do all of this

Lori: Well, when you're a theater teacher, you have to build all those sets and things, so yeah, you get really handy with tools. and so that- it's been really fun to do projects

Ingrid: so amazing, so amazing. So just out of curiosity, because you come across as a very kind of organised person, so what made you then come into the Inner Hub membership and think, "I, I, I need some help with this"? What was the reason?

Lori: Well, I can be organized, I think, in my work life,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: not as organized in my home life.

Ingrid: Okay

Lori: and it is easy to collect things.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: I think I, in a lot of ways, we just had too much stuff. and I came across you guys, I think it must have been during COVID, that I first discovered. I started listening to podcasts.

I actually had time 'cause I was home,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: from home. And, I just thought, "Oh, you sound so delightful." So I loved listening to you and, Lesley, and I thought, "They sound like people I would like to get to know." and, I felt like there were so many people I would listen to, and I... They were like, "Well, I cleaned my own home, so I can clean...

teach you to clean your own home." And I thought, "No, I don't work that way." It's like those people who are like, "I sing, so I can teach voice lessons," and I think,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: no, don't send my students to those people."

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: I send them to somebody who's got some experience. And so with the background that you come from professional organizing, I thought, "I love that.

That just feels like these ladies know what's going on."

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: and so I started working on other areas of my home and realizing I just plain old have too much stuff. That's all... And now you look at my sewing stuff, you're like, "Laura, you still have too much stuff." But, but this, if I want to use it, it has to be where I can use it,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: making a conscious choice to keep something.

whereas all my other types of crafts, they've gone out the door. They've gone to go. I, I'm never going to be a knitter or a painter or a... You know, there are things I'm never going to be. but clothing, doing the resets, I'm still struggling with resets 'cause it's... come in tired and late and things get...

And I'm like, "Ugh." So I'm better at a weekly reset than I am at my daily ones.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: and so it's just something that I feel like has made my life a lot easier,

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: as I've been decluttering. and my husband and I, we can... We work together on some of these things, and he enjoys being able to go out in the garage and find the right tool, you know?

So it's been helpful.

Ingrid: Awesome. I'm so happy, and it makes me so happy that, you listened to us and thought, "I want to hang out with these ladies," and just to see your progress as well, it's just been so fantastic. And, you know, such an inspiration as well to see, because crafting can be seen as such a daunting area to do, because often, you know, it, it, it can be an area that it's so easy to go, "Oh, I'm gonna try my hand on that now, and I like that, so I think I'll probably like that too."

And it can become so quickly overwhelming and, you know, then you of course get the little memes like, "I just love buying craft stuff more than actually doing the crafting." Because it's so tempting, isn't it, to spend a lot of money on this? Because it only is a few buttons, but it soon adds up, right?

Lori: It really does. And when I sew for hundreds of students a year, then it's like I need certain supplies, and so I do end up buying... So I deliberately bought thread in all the different colors because you can't buy a decent spool of thread here.

Ingrid: Okay

Lori: but I thought if I have that, I need to know I have it.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lori: and I need to be able to use it.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lori: things, yeah, it's really great to let things go . It's so nice

Ingrid: Yeah, yeah. Well, utterly delightful, honestly, and, fantastic to see and fantastic how you just love helping your students. And I, I did one year of high school, and I was also involved in a musical production at that time, and I know the work and time and energy the teachers put into that. I was in the choir as well in, in my, in my high school, and I totally just loved it.

So thank you so much, Lori, for being here and for sharing this with us and, and enjoy your last years of teaching. Enjoy your, your, your work towards your retirement and opening a fabric store.

It's... We'll follow you along the way and, thank you so much for sharing. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Lori: Thank you so much. And I have to put a plug in for your book, because I bought it the first day I could buy it.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lori: It was the, audiobook version was available in the States before the regular one. and I think I've listened to it about seven times. It's wonderful. It just keeps me motivated.

I just put it in and I'm like, "I am ready to go. This is what I'm doing next." And so it's been wonderful. It keeps me motivated, and I love it. So thank you

Ingrid: Thank you so much. So podcast, book, membership, you're a true Declutter Hub fan, Lori,

Lori: I

Ingrid: thank you

Lori: am

Ingrid: much. So thank you, listeners. So has this conversation inspired you to think, "Oh, yes, I love crafting too, and I like sewing and knitting and, and appliqué," and of the things, or needlework or whatever it is that your passion is. realise just because you've done something in the past doesn't mean... And you don't enjoy it anymore, doesn't mean you have to hold on to all of the supplies and all of the things if that means that you can't currently do the craft you are enjoying. Honestly, less is more, and, and Lori is really a perfect example on how she, of course, was able to transform her, her room, but how she's getting so much enjoyment out of her passion.

So I hope this has inspired you to have a look at that craft room that you might have in your own home and think, "You know what? I'm going to sort this out, and I'm going to think about maybe some categorisation and some labeling and some bins or containers," because enjoy it. Enjoy your time when you are able to craft, and do that because that's what we wish for you.

So thanks so much for listening, and, well, we'll see you next week