We’ve lived in this apartment for almost 2 years now (in fact my birthday is the 2 year anniversary) and in that entire time I’ve never done much to make it ours because we only ever sign a 6 month lease and every six months I think:

• Oh well there’s no point getting new furniture,  I can’t afford it, I don’t have any time to DIY something that big. We’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
• Oh well there’s no point unpacking those boxes, we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
• Oh well there’s no point getting/making nicer things, they probably won’t fit in with my awesome new decorating colour scheme when we move into our dream home and we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…

So the first step to changing things is making goals.

Throughout these posts you will see my diary pages which are a combination of pen, water colours and stickers. I don’t have neat hand writing and my style tends to be very chaotic so I will provide transcripts below them with other notes included. My math teacher used to say that clever people always had terrible hand writing because their brains worked faster than their hands could and that’s what I’m sticking to 😉

Also my spelling and grammar sucks so there you go!

So what am I trying to get out of this project?

• To make every part of the house pretty without losing functionality -> I don’t think functional and beautiful are mutually exclusive. Our house needs to be practical so I refuse to settle for less function just because something is pretty.
• To spend as little money as possible -> I have pretty much no budget for this so I’m probably not going to spend anything unless it comes out of the change jar. (Oh who am I kidding, all THAT money goes to claw machine!)
• Regain my creativity and problem solving skills -> Not doing things regularly makes me lazy and I don’t like that.
• Replace all ugly things -> Our place is full of mismatched junk that we’ve collected over the years which I want to replace or rework so it’s visually appealing as well.
• Practice decorating for our real home -> Use this space to decide on the themes and colours we want for the next place.
• Stop procrastinating! -> Self explanatory, stop over thinking things so much and just do them! *she types as she has an article about the Titanic, Realestate.com.au and Youtube open in the other tabs* >_>
• Surround ourselves with beauty -> I think if our place is brighter and happier then James and I probably will be too.
• Stop waiting and start DOING! -> Well… duh ^_^

• Lack of inspiration
• Lack of money
• Lack of time

Inspiration isn’t something that I can magic up but I think that by having a well kept to do list with a range of small quick projects as well as the bigger ones I can combat that. Money is something I can control to a certain extent and I will work harder at putting some savings together but realistically I’m just going to try to reuse the things I already have in different ways and burn through my craft stash.

Time will probably be the biggest killer here. James and I have been trying to cut back on working after hours so no more nights and weekends which is nice but not particularly realistic. To a certain extent at least, working for yourself means working when there’s work and that means sometimes you have to do late nights or weekends. What I am going to do is make an effort to have at least one evening a week for doing these projects. If possible I will actually do them in the mornings so I can take better quality photos and not have to set up flashes but that will obviously depend on schedules.

I think posting here about it will make me feel a lot more accountable especially for procrastinating because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t follow through XD

Funnily enough I think it also has a bit to do with what we have to watch or do in the evenings. I always do my best craft when we’re watching great TV or playing great games but nothing is really grabbing my attention at the moment. I’ve re-watched most of my favorites fairly recently and James is playing Grand Turismo 5 which is one of the most boring games of all time to watch. Let me know if you have any good recommendations!

So all in all I’m feeling pretty good about this! I’m looking forward to doing some of the projects I’ve been wanting to tackle for years and I’m really looking forward to having and awesome looking apartment which will make me feel great until we can buy our first place.

Hopefully it will be a good start to make bigger changes and better things for the future and I hope you all enjoy it too ^_^

Super props if you actually read all of that, I think this is the most I’ve written here in months… so that’s a good start *_*

Wish me luck!