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The work room makeover is complete or as complete as it is going to be for now. I did a small purge getting rid of two large boxes of assorted "stuff" that I believe I will never want again. Most of this went to the curb but 3 things went to MarketPlace and have sold. Things have been rearranged a bit and drawers labeled to make locating everything somewhat easier. I've cleared off my main horizontal work surface as much as is practical and can now spread fabric and paper out

I am fortunate to have an entire bedroom in this Dusty Old House to use as a craft room. It is just a bit unfortunate that every wall has at least 1 door or window; makes it a bit difficult to arrange furniture. When I moved everything into the room, I just put the furniture pieces wherever they would fit without much attention to how they would work together. Later I rearranged and things are now in much better configuration. That's the footprint. The current problem is that

While this web site, DustyOldHouse.com , is primarily about my blog journaling my creative adventures, I also intend to use it as a resource for tracking things that I find interesting or helpful along the way. Toward that end I have established the following additional pages: Books A list of Amazon.com links for books that I have found. I am not an Amazon affiliate and derive no income from these books in any way. Crafting Supplies Another Amazon.com link list from which I

Have been getting a bit annoyed with myself. Haven't finished anything recently so nothing to photograph and show here. Decided to visit some things I've done in the past. dks, 29 Sept 2025 My most recent doll. I created the patterns. When I was experimenting with resin. Those are starlight mints. One of my more recent books. Freestyle embroidery and felt applique on the cover.

In an earlier post I quoted Pasteur incorrectly. It should have read "Chance favors the prepared mind." This means than accidents and serendipitous events are more likely to result in problem solutions if you have the knowledge of the field required to recognize these opportunities. Having written an article many years ago titled "Prepare Your Mind for Creativity" in which I quoted Pasteur correctly, my mind went to substituting creativity for chance. My apologies to Pasteu

Slow Stitching: what it is and isn't I have become rather irritated with the abuse of the term slow stitching in facebook groups on youtube videos. So I'd like to review briefly what slow stitching is and what it is not. Slow stitching would better be called mindful stitching. The concept is that while you are stitching you are totally immersed in and focused upon the task at hand. No multitasking. No worrying about what to make for dinner. No focusing on hurrying to get the

Are you creative? I bet you are even if you are not an artist, not a musician, not a crafter, not a writer, etc. The cornerstones of creativity are that you produce something which is both novel and useful. This can be on a grand scale or simply novel and useful to you. So, I ask again, are you creative? Let's look again at novelty and usefulness. There are 4 possible combinations of yes/no responses to novel and useful. They are, in order of creativity: Both novel and useful

The last day or so hasn't been too creative because I've been involved with my MarketPlace sales. For those who don't know, MarketPlace is a creation of Meta, the owners of FaceBook, Instagram, and other social media. MarketPlace is a place to buy, sell, trade a variety of goods. For me, it is a virtual yard sale and is currently making more money for me than the actual yard sales I held last year with a lot less effort involved. For those interested, my seller profile is at

Just getting started. Check back for updates.