Telling my inner Shopper "NO!"

I love to shop - that might be an understatement!  I'm telling myself "NO" to extras this year but it's all for a good cause.  I've always told myself I want to be debt free by 35 and this is the year to make it happen; since I'm turning 34 in a few days.  My first step was organizing our household finances in one place. I've done the spread sheet and budget and it never seemed to stick.  After hearing about mint.com from a co-worker I looked into it and I'm glad I did.  What I know about myself is that I can be co-dependent when it comes to some things - working out, sewing and now being debt free.  I need someone to meet somewhere and hold me accountable or someone I can run an idea past and get input and mint.com offers this.  The service is free and basically loads all your account info into one place.  Once you've completed this step you can set goal, budgets, and so much more.  The accountability comes through email alerts and now this post.  I'll be posting my progress as I go.  Here it goes, while I know this journey will not alway be easy and I'm sure I'll tested when I see a super cute pair of shoes or a killer discount on a fabulous handbag but for the long term benefit I can handle a little short term pain.

reclaiming my craft studio

You won't believe this, from the photos below, but my craft studio is a place I cherished.  But on occasion it becomes complete chaos - when a crafting/wrapping bomb explodes and there was no clean up crew called to take care of the mess.  I have lots of family which means multiple Christmas celebrations so I wrap and package gifts multiple times throughout the season (and after).

I started reading A Bowl Full of Lemons, after learning about it from my aunt Tara over at Tara Bee Ink,  I love her organizational planning.  I'm taking part in her 14 week home organization plan which technically started Friday but I thought I'd get a head start and clean you my studio.  Below are photos of everything thing in its (new) place.  

You may have notice that the room is very white - that's intentional - I wanted it to be a blank space where creativity could flow freely.  With that in mind I've filled the space with things I love and bring inspiration - the plates above the window are from my grandmothers, there is a dusty black mental lunch box on one of the shelves - it was my grandpa's, his coffee mug is also on the shelf.  Above the door (not pictured) is a sketch of the church where my maternal grandparents were married.  I continue to fill this space with meaningful things creating a space that is uniquely mine.