art supplies: before

I have carted various art supplies around in three milk crates for the past 15 years or so. Recently, the only thing that's changed about them is their location (they were moved to make way for the husband's electronics desk) and the amount of dust they've collected.

So now it's their turn ...

I can see (from the top): travel books and brochures (which I'm using in planning The Big Trip, but which can at the very least be tidied up); stickers (no idea how I ended up with them, but may be put to use in bribing children now I know they're there); a set of rubber stamps (can go in with the other cardmaking supplies in the desk drawer - which is yet to be sorted).

In the top crate: the cardboard box seems to contain beads and ribbons; a bottle of PVA glue of indeterminate age; face paint crayons; a silk screen squeegee (isn't that a great word? Squeegee!); a paintbrush; a tin of rubber cement (years old - may just need tossing); a red plastic bag containing a hot glue gun and glue sticks (which I am incapable of operating without getting strings of glue everywhere); a wooden box of artist's pastels; a large spool of orange giftwrap ribbon; and a signed 1997 Greenpeace calendar (from when I worked in the Sydney office).

In the second crate: plastic chocolate moulds; various boxes and tins of pastels, crayons, pencils and watercolours; a ceramic paint mixing palette; film reel canisters (also used as palettes); staple gun and staples; a magnifying glass in its box; a pencil case which I suspect contains special markers from my landscape architecture course at uni (which I finished in 1987, so I doubt they're much good for anything now); and possibly other stuff lurking at the back.

In the bottom crate: old tins of paint; can of spray fixative; jar of paintbrushes; tub of gesso; a yellow M&M tube filled with small ink canisters for a fountain pen; and more lurking in amongst the shadows and spider webs.


On the right hand side of the crates, beside the desk: the new home of the guillotine, and several large gift bags (too good to throw out, too big to put anywhere else).

On the left hand side of the crates: a paper bag of cardmaking items bought at a party plan event (with good intentions of making Christmas cards. Ha!); a blue eco-bag of books (have forgotton exactly what's in it, although I recall something about suicide bunny cards ...); spare shelf for the 'new' shelving unit (I'll eventually buy a second unit, so will just hang on to this one).

I would eventually like to get rid of the crates, or do something else with them (perhaps cubby house furniture?), but for now I'll pull everything out of them, clean all the dust off, sort out what's there and throw out anything that's no longer usable, and repack it so I can find things (don't know how many times I could have used that staple gun, if only I'd known where it was).