An overland bird safari, and my favourite four-step decluttering process!

My husband Paul and me

 

Hi everyone!

 

We had guests stay for a long weekend and they took us on a gannet trip on the Sunday. It was invigorating and fascinating! We had the best guide in Wayne, with a mere 45 years experience taking the safaris.

It’s so good to be a tourist in your own town :)

(Wayne’s Instagram is here with some beautiful and historic photography - he even met David Attenborough in 1982 and spent the day with him as he showed him around the gannet colony!)

 

Cutie gannets. They build their nests from mud and seaweed, and bury their egg in that. Both the male and the female gannet take turns standing on the nest, keeping the egg warm with their thermal webbed feet. So dedicated!

 

At the bottom of this cliff, on the beach, is another gannet colony. You can see them if you look :) Plus, there were seals hanging out by the gannets too. They looked like big grey rocks, until you saw one move that is.

Peeking out above the clouds you can see Mt Ruapehu which is 3-4 hours drive away. Mt Ruapehu is an active volcano... we have all the fun here in New Zealand I tell you!

So that was our weekend, and this week I have been tidying and organizing our house, because, well, it's not tidy and organized at the moment. My most recent 'success' was our shoe closet. Yes I have a shoe closet! It’s a double width storage space in our laundry which is the perfect place to house our shoes - mine are here on the right and my husband Paul’s are on the left.

 

 

 

I had a clean-out and a tidy up, throwing out one pair of favourite well-worn summer wedge sandals, and donating a dozen other pairs that I just don’t wear anymore.

It feels SO GOOD to have all my shoes neat and tidy, with space for every pair. Before I did this I had a pile-up at the bottom 🙈

But as you can see I still have plenty to wear. Those pairs I decluttered weren’t worn anyway and now I have breathing space. Isn’t that always the way? It can be so difficult to contemplate getting rid of things, but when you do my favourite four-step decluttering process it is so simple, and even dare I say it, enjoyable. Especially afterwards, but during too.

Here’s my process:

1. Take everything out of a space.

2. Clean/dust the space and make it nice.

3. Put back only the items that are your nicest and best, the ones you enjoy the most, the newest and most special etc. Be guided by the size of your space when you decide what to put back.

4. Look at the items left over and decide that you are happy to donate them to someone else to wear and love, since you don’t. You will feel so light and joyous once they are gone. I always feel happier when I do this and I’m sure you will too.

Let me know what area you’d love to have the fairies do for you, and then jump in and start it! I am going to do my plates and dishes next.

xx Fiona

PS. If you need more inspiration to simplify your home and have it feeling so lovely and free. with space to live your dream life, download my newest book here and get cracking. '100 Ways to Declutter Your Home' has all my favourite tried and true practical and inspirational tips, reminders, suggestions and ideas on how to have fun streamlining your possessions.

Any improvements I want to make in my life have to be FUN and EASY, and this book follows the same principles. Otherwise I just won't do it! I don't have children of my own, but I reckon I would have made a great mum, from my experience cajoling and convincing my inner toddler to get with the programme and go for my desires, even though she is screaming and kicking and would rather be sitting on the sofa with a book...

If this sounds like you, you might enjoy this book, and my others as well!

You can find them all here on my Amazon author page.

 

(If you use my Amazon links I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Thanks so much if you choose to!)

30 Chic Days at Home - Day 1 - The Joy of Getting Things Done

My happy pantry before the big stock-up :)

Don't know if you've noticed, but I have been hibernating away, introvert-style.  It just comes over me and I want to hunker down in my home with minimal contact with the outside world.  It feels a bit impolite but sometimes it's the only thing I can do.  I'm learning (slowly) not to judge it, and just  flow with it.  It feels like I'm playing hooky.

What I've been doing with my time though is, leading on from my posts late last year about making my home ‘show-home-like*’, I have been continuing to simplify, declutter, organise and streamline my surroundings.

[*I’m not sure what you call it where you live?  A show-home here in New Zealand is one of those styled homes that is usually brand new to showcase a new property development, but more recently can be a home that is staged to show the ‘perfect’ lifestyle.  I am always inspired by a visit - even if virtual - to one of those places.]

At first to get a handle on everything that would make my life feel free and easy, I brainstormed a big list of  'loose ends and bothersome things' (that's actually what I called it).  My financial paperwork was messy; I needed to get my tax information to my accountant for her to complete my end-of-year financial statement; my food areas – pantry, fridge and freezer – needed an inventory and a clean out where I commit to making meals out of what I already have in stock; mending to be done; visits to people I hadn't seen in ages; replacing my laptop before it died; getting a new iron and microwave, unjam my overlocker (serger) and tidy my sewing room (yes, again. Sewing rooms are never tidy for long, or at least mine isn't).

It was refreshing to create this list because it was no longer clogging up my head.  Even the littlest things building up can slow me down mentally.  They hang over you like a grey cloud, even if it’s a tiny weeny grey cloud such as making a phone call to book a dental checkup (which is still on my list).

After feeling stuck and not knowing where to start, I had the inkling to choose the one item that bothered me the most.  Looking through my list I saw an online order where I wasn’t happy with the quality.  I was just going to put the items away and chalk it up to experience, but in that moment I decided to do an instant chat with the company concerned.  Within a short time they had issued a credit and I didn’t even need to return the items.

This win gave me the oomph to choose another thing from my list, and another.  I haven’t finished yet, but I have done so much over the past several months and it feels fantastic.  Each mini-achievement spurs you on I have found.

Here are the kinds of things I have been working on most recently:

• Sent tax information to my accountant for last financial year.
• Fully up to date with this financial year’s information and will be ready to hand it over after the 31^st March year-end date.
• Loads of paperwork either filed or shredded
• Getting a plumber in to fix a number of issues that were small but irritating. None of them were big enough for a job by themselves, but when we had several it was such a joy to see them all fixed within a day.
• Cleaning out my email Inbox and setting up rules for the few mailing lists I am on.  Emails from those people go into a folder which I can browse at my leisure.  I’ve had ‘getting control of my Inbox’ on my wish list for years.
• Food supplies organised and being used, but… then I did a stock up early this week just in case, so my pantry, fridge and freezer are all full again, however I know this is only temporary and it has made me appreciate having space to breathe in my kitchen! (I am also grateful I can stock up, I know some don’t have the funds to do that.)
• Committing to not buying something until I use the last one up.  Body products are a big one for me.  I love pretty soaps, body lotions and fragrance.  Our bathroom may or may not resemble a retail store… it’s tough for me to say no to a new purchase but it feels good to make the space over time so I am being strong.

At the moment when we are all going out less, it’s a great chance to do these kinds of things.  It's incredible how good it feels to clear out the clutter of your mind and remove things from your To-Do List, even if it's just deciding that you don't want to follow through on that item anymore and can simply cross it out.  

And instead of feeling shut in, why not take pleasure from making your home orderly and a nice place to be – let it a sanctuary for you and your family.

xx Fiona

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The Show-Home Life: Steps 3 and 4!

Hello chic friends!

Today I want to share more of what I’ve been working on for my ‘Show Home Life Project’.  Remember in this post here, I talked about wanting to have a lovely tidy and neat home where everything is perfect, just like in a show home or even a hotel (five star please!)  The phrase ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ has always appealed to me.  It just sounds so soothing, doesn’t it?  Every time I hear it I am reminded of my goal.

To recap the first few steps for this project, they are:

Step one: deciding what your project is.  For me, it’s making my home – and life – into that of a perfect show home.  Not really, and I’m not obsessive about it, but just for fun. I am inspired not to be slovenly with this project :)

Step two: working out what is getting in the way between you and your desired vision.  In that same post I detailed the areas which were most bothersome – my office, my closet, my sewing room and a few cupboards about the place.

Then I moved onto step three: taking action!  Because I had already been ruminating over what I wanted to improve in these areas I was ready to go all in and start making big changes.  My sewing room was the biggest because it had become the room where things went ‘just for now’ as well as temporarily storing some items for family members.

One day a few weeks ago I had the whole afternoon free, or rather I ignored everything on my to-do list and focused entirely on my sewing room.  Every single thing came out, into the garage, leaving only a few large pieces of furniture – a desk, bookshelf and small dining table which I use for a cutting table.  Then I vacuumed lots.  Then I moved the desk and table around to suit the room better.  Then I put back the items I wanted to keep and boxed the rest up for donation.

(Before pictures! So sorry for the assault on your eyes!)

Even Jessica cat was hiding behind my sewing machine from the chaos.

It was a marathon effort and I slept like a rock that night.  I even had to get my husband Paul to bring takeaway Indian home for dinner because I was so exhausted.  But it was a good exhaustion.  I felt exhilarated and my sewing room looked – and felt – wonderful.  I have been using it more and even shouted myself a new iron, because ours was rather elderly and even a bit dangerous.  It had been dropped years ago and glued back together.  The on/off light on the handle had pushed in and was showing wires!  I found out that irons aren’t even *that* expensive either, so I do wonder why I waited so long (and risked possible electrocution).

I want to put some more pictures up in my sewing room too.  Now that all the clutter is gone it will be nice to bring in some beauty.  I need to buy a few packets of those gold picture hooks for this so they will go on my shopping list.  I have enough art prints and old paintings to supply a few for this room.

(The After pictures.  So soothing.)

(Our old dining table which is now my cutting table and I am making some new cloth coasters from lovely fabrics out of a sample book).

And that’s step four – adding a few final touches to make your home an inspiring and encouraging place to be in.  You can see here in my office below a little picture wall I put up.  One print is from my trip to London which I had framed, and the rest are from charity stores and auction box lots – all inexpensive, but with a similar theme in terms of colour, framing, and topics – London, Paris, floral, feminine.

I hope you found my before and after photos inspiring.  I LOVE seeing others results, even if it's a bit embarrassing to put up the before photos - I do it all in service to you :)

xx Fiona

PS. I know it's Thanksgiving in the US, and even though we don't celebrate it officially in New Zealand, I want to say that I am super grateful for you, my readers for being here.

To celebrate, and for Black Friday (black is very chic, is it not?), I am offering something I have never done before.  All of my Kindle books (many of which are usually $9.99) will be priced at $2.99 for a strictly limited time.

Take this opportunity to fill your Kindle library with chic inspiration heading into the holiday season and to start your new decade with a renewed spirit.

You can find all of my books here:

Super Chic Black Friday $2.99 Kindle Books Special

Happy Chic Friday everyone!