Help me to throw out...

My watercolours and acrylics have probably gone hard in the tubes by now, but I kept them just in case ....

The button tin is overflowing but when I knit something for DGC I look in there and think - no, nothing is just right - and go and buy some new ones

That's why I cleared mine out! I had so many brown ones. I do use my buttons a lot, I buy something fairly cheap and then put nice buttons on it. It makes a huge difference.

annodomini please tell me how you manage to let go of duplicate knitting needles. I have a box full often several in one size just in case I should be knitting 6 items at once on the same size needles !

Six items at once?!

I had six items on the go (well, some of them had been on the knitting needles for years!).

Making a concerted effort I have finished three of them - and nearly finished the fourth!

Oh, plus a half-finished knitted toy ...

I have a make your own rug kit, half finished, from um, 30 years ago. I might finish it one day?
It will look lovely hideous nowadays. Bright orange tiger rug, or it could be owls, I have forgotten. It is nostalgic though.

I have an Aran jacket, unfinished, in several bags. I think I stopped knitting it when it got too heavy for my shoulder which must be a good nine or ten years ago. I have just finished knitting a blanket for the women's fistula hospital in Addis so when I've finished sewing it up, I will dig out that jacket again and find out just what stage I had reached.
Granne72, I don't have a very big house! And if I ever have six items on the go at once please refer me for therapy!

I spent many painfully slow hours, when younger, knitting a sweater with poppies growing up the front and back.
It took me two years (!) and just needed sewing together. I shoved it in a cupboard and months later fished it out....only to find a bl...y mouse had made a delightful nest in the middle of it
I couldn't do anything other than bin it; it put me off knitting for years!

anno The six items I had 'on the go' were spread over about 28 years
I went off knitting for about 20 years!

Do I need therapy?
Knitting is good therapy, I'll try that

I give plastic carrier bags to local charity shop, they are glad of them.
But I have been hoarding the cardboard boxes that Amazon send books in. I thought I could use them if I needed to post a book to someone else. Very handy I thought. But now I have far too many and I don't often post books to anyone. But I might, when I start clearing out my books, of which I now have far too many.

I had a major de-clutter after Christmas. I started off a bit wimpy wondering if I was being too gung-ho and by the end I was throwing stuff out willy-nilly and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mid you I still haven't done anything to the loft - that is another very major story.

Plastic bags to charity shops is a good idea.

I have the same loft problem whitewave. I have been doing it, but making slow progress.
I have kept most of the childrens' toy stuff though. It is like loking back at my life 20 years ago! Hopefully it will come in very handy.

I tried to give my coat hangers to a charity shop, I thought they would be delighted, but no, someone had decided that they needed to look more professional and have all the same type. Ridiculous! In the end, I said, take them and see if someone wants to buy them. 'Oh what a good idea!' they said.

I would really like a rolling eyes smiley!

DH says he's going to clear out the loft whitewave and soon ....If he does then I'm going away while he does it!
99% of the crap stuff is his, put up there when we moved here 19 years ago until 'I can sort it out'. I've never been up there so can honestly claim nothing is mine
I'm prepared to bet 98% goes back.

Haven't had an art moment/time strike for a while now soontobe

Just spent a weekend making space in the Futility room before builder comes in and was trying to make a list of what I need cupboard space for. I could only think of Laundry stuff and wellies, then wondered what on earth all the other stuff is!

Well done constance!

We moved to Norfolk nine months ago and I was determined that nothing was going in the loft. It was hard to part with some of the things that we had kept for forty years but we did it. I now have 4 matching boxes on top of the wardrobe, one for each child, with their most precious mementos in and another for ourselves, and a loft that has nothing but insulation in it.

[smug] emoticon

I've got no chance of hoarding empty plastic tubs etc. Husband continually asks me "Are you keeping this for a specific reason?" and if I as much as hesitate for a moment, out it goes. He is utterly ruthless. I'm lucky that he has kept me for so long

DS1 is threatening to visit me and perform a 'life laundry' in my cluttered house. Should I feel scared?

Should have said the loft may be empty but the plastic bags and plastic boxes are taking over the kitchen. HELP!

I started decluttering the garden and garage yesterday.

I would love an empty loft. Or at least emptier.

CeeCee - Very good job re loft.

Grannyknot -

annodomini - I would be very scared!

I am going for an emptier loft too, not an empty one. Probably half of what I started with.
Some of the stuff I kept did get used when the kids started setting up living elsewhere. But some of it will not get used, and I am very slowly working through.

I should have got rid of some plastic bags yesterday and didnt. I procrastinated and shut the door on them.
It really shouldnt be this hard should it? To deal with the excess. What on earth is in some of us to delay on something as non essential in life as plastic bags.

I am past help. Decided to clear out a kitchen cupboard I rarely use, found two electric kettles, I have two in use, I do not need four kettles , why do I have four kettles.

As a spare spare spare of course.

I carted around a spare kettle and toaster for years, every time he unpacked them DBH wondered why he bothered. Then DD set up home and they went to her. Within 6 months ours had both broken, we had started to think they were invincible. I've just parted with my old blender/mixer to her and am eyeing up my new one a little worriedly.

I opened up a cupboard a couple of weeks ago, I thought it contained just seeds and labels and string and general gardening stuff. Until four huge columns of plastic tubs fell out! I looked at them and thought, Why? Then remembered that I cut them up for plant labels until two years ago, when I decided to change to ice lolly sticks instead. It was lovely to throw them all out and have all that extra space to play with.