Latest / More Organised Less Clutter / 239. Creative, Colourful DIY Ideas and Sustainable Living
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome to More Organized, Less Clutter, a podcast to empower individuals and neurodivergent families with practical, realistic tools to create a more organized, sensory-friendly, clutter-free, and intentional home that works with your lifestyle and brain, not against it. I'm Narelle King, a professional organizer and neurodivergent mom who understands the unique challenges of family life. I help people just like you simplify your space build sustainable organisational systems and create more breathing room physically and mentally. Every fortnight, you'll hear solo episodes and guest conversations filled with practical strategies on decluttering, home organisation, routines for neurodivergent families, mindful living and how to build a home that feels safe, calm and functional. You'll walk away with actionable takeaways you can implement even if you only have 10 minutes to spare. Have you ever wondered how you can bring more playfulness, creativity and sustainability into your everyday life at home? Today on More Organised, Less Clutter, I'm talking with Kirsty from Kirsty Creative. She's a proud, autistic, passionate creative who shares fun content online about crafts, home DIY and how to experiment with colour. You have to check out her social media pages. In this episode, Kirsty is going to inspire you to experiment with her crap craft theory and embrace more sustainable, thoughtful choices in your home. This conversation is also available as a video, so you can go over to YouTube and check it out. Let's jump into this more organized, less clutter episode with Kirsty Creative. Today on more organized, less clutter, I'm talking with Kirsty from Kirsty Creative. She's a proud, autistic, passionate creative who creates content online about. cosy crafts, as well as amazing home DIY. She is today going to inspire you to be more playful, creative and sustainable. Welcome, Kirsty. speaker-1: Thanks for having me, I'm so excited to be. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ no, your Instagram page is amazing. It's such a beautiful place to go and have a look and just get feel inspired and just love your projects that you're sharing, especially around your own house and that bathroom. speaker-1: The bathroom is my favourite room in the house and it's such a boring room to have as your favourite because it's actually not even the bathroom, it's literally just like the toilet room. Boring room. But it's the best room in the house, I can't wait to get everything else decorated as well. speaker-0: That's just the top of my head. Yeah, it's good to have started small first as well and try it out. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: So if you were a Barbie doll, what two accessories would you come with? speaker-1: feel like I would come with a paintbrush kit, one that's small for doing art and then also a big paintbrush for painting the walls in my house. And my second accessory would be a bedazzled book. Specifically, I want it to be bedazzled and beautiful. speaker-0: And for journaling or what would you use it for? speaker-1: I think it'd be like a novel, some kind of like cute storyline, maybe like a queer love story. But yeah, I want it to be beautifully bedazzled on the outside. speaker-0: Yeah. So you can just look at it and get the inspiration just from looking on the outside. That's right. That's beautiful. So if I could work with you as a professional organiser, what area in your life needs some help with organising? speaker-1: It's literally every single corner cupboard in the house. All of those kitchen spaces, the corner cupboards, we have tried our best to utilise them, but they're not giving what I would love them to be giving. speaker-0: Yeah. Have you ever used roundabouts in them? Like the big roundabouts? No. Big circles and you can put things in it and then you just spin it around. It's not going to make the most of the actual cupboard space, but it is going to make it more, you know, efficient for you. speaker-1: And there's ones that are like the whole bench rather than like little mini ones. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is. Yeah, yeah, something you could try out on one of those corners. Yeah, yeah. So what strengths do you bring then to your projects and your DIY that make your whole ideas really unique? And people will have to go and look at your Instagram or TikTok so they can see this. But just because they can't see it right now. So what's some of those strengths that you bring to it? speaker-1: Good idea, love. I think we really lean into colour a lot, like we're not afraid of colour. We recently did our toilet walls, we went to Bunnings and picked out 17 colours that we liked and we went up to the counter and I was like, I'm so sorry, can I have 17 sample paint pots please? And I literally thought I was joking and they were like, are you sure? And I was like, no, no, I'm dead serious. I want 17 sample paint pots. So yeah, we really lean into colour. afraid of colour and I think that's really nice because we get to really experiment with different designs because we're not restricting ourselves too much by a colour palette. I think the thing with painting a house is you can just paint over it. It doesn't look good, it's such a low pressure thing to decorate in your house. It feels huge because it feels permanent but you really can just paint over it. That's one way that we really love to experiment with colour in our house is painting. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. And with the painting, because it's not just a paint of one colour. It's like painting, like decorative painting that you're actually doing on the walls as well. speaker-1: Yeah, in our hallway, we recently painted the hallway yellow, but then also painted these like kind of gold or yellow squiggles all the way down and it's the hallway roof. it's quite fun. We originally wanted to do stripes, but our walls aren't perfectly straight and we couldn't figure out the measurements. It was too hard. So we pivoted and did these squiggles. But yeah, we generally will not just paint a wall, but we'll do something. really fun to do as well. it's like a cow print or like a squiggle or like a wave is fun. There's so many fun. We go for generally pretty organic shapes or a stripe. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah and so when you were growing up were you really interested in art? Did you experiment with art a lot when you were younger? speaker-1: Our house was pretty, my mum has beautiful taste but it is not the same colour palette. It's more something you'd see in a country style magazine, ⁓ which I love. But I've always been very attracted to colour. I remember one night my walls were white in my bedroom and I really should have got in trouble for this in hindsight and I didn't. Or maybe mum just was like, I don't know how to respond to this, it was not in the parenting handbook. But one night, like literally in the middle of the night, I woke up and I painted an entire mural over my entire wall. Not just a tiny little bit, like quite literally the entire wall. I painted butterflies and flowers and a sun and grass and... all of these things and then just went to sleep. And then it was just never really acknowledged. I thought it was quite cute as a kid. We kept it there for years. It's been painted over now. yeah, I never got in trouble for that one. But yeah, I've always been really drawn to color and creativity and things that I can do, I guess, around the home, even as an eight year old. yeah, yeah. speaker-0: Was it amazing as well? That's so good. So what about if other people wanted to be more creative, how can they be more accessible at being creative in their own homes? speaker-1: Yeah, I think two things. The first thing is we have like these crafting trolleys. So me and my partner both have one individually because I don't want their mess in my mess. They don't want my mess in their mess. So we have these crafting trolleys where we can kind of have our projects that are kind of like in progress. We can kind of pack them away onto the trolley. And then ⁓ as two neurodivergent people, we'll be in a household together. We often get sick of the room that we're in. So having these trolleys means we can like wheel. all of our crafts all at the same time from the kitchen to the craft room to the bedroom to the lounge that's one way that really makes crafting really accessible for us is being able to move around the house. The other thing that makes it really accessible is having organized drawers and boxes that are labeled with the kinds of crafts that we have given we do quite a lot of crafting and have lots of little bits that maybe aren't a proper craft kit but are just like we could maybe do this with this one day, let's keep it. Having those organized into boxes, it did start out as one little tiny box and that was fine as is, but now that it's expanded, having them labeled as different things means that it's so much more accessible because when you go to do it, you're not overwhelmed by it. ⁓ my goodness, I have no idea where that random thing is. You're like, ⁓ it'll be in this box labeled this, no worries. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. And do you find then, are you both able to organise it and is it micro organised? So like, ⁓ I'm just thinking of little house, like those little tiny houses that you can make. Is it all the little parts of that are like organised separately, or it's just tiny houses in one little box altogether? speaker-1: It's probably not too micro organized. think we have maybe like six boxes and a set of drawers. We generally have like a box that is like all of our paint supplies and it'll be like brushes and paints like acrylic paint, oil paint, all of the paints in one. So it's not like to the detail. ⁓ Or we have like a box that's more like craft kits that we've purchased. So it's got like an embroidery kit I purchased. It's got a knitting kit that I purchased. So they're kind of all kept together and then there's like beading in another box. So it's pretty, it's not too micro where it's like, know, glass beads, seed beads, it's more like beading and it contains wire cutters, it contains the, know, wire, the thread, it kind of has it all in one. speaker-0: Yeah. So are you both good at putting that back when you finished or you have to wait till the project's completely finished before you put it away? speaker-1: I think I'm definitely a little bit better at putting it away than my partner. But we generally will keep a project out if we're kind of in the middle of it and it's a long one. Ideally if we can kind of put it onto our trolley in the meantime. I'm bedazzling a book at the same time that I'm beating some flowers at the moment and I'm also doing a diamond painting. That's too many things to have out at one go. The diamond painting stays out on the table because it's too big to put away, but the beading for my flowers and the bedazzling of my book, put them back into my trolley when I'm done with the session. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's such a key thing is the trolley to be able to move it around. and I have used that with clients. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, and because we both are kind of doing different crafts at the same time, it doesn't probably feel too overwhelming if I left my own crafts out, but if Atlas was to leave their crafts out and then I go into the craft room and do crafting, but their stuff's out, then it's a little bit overwhelming. I think when there's two of us in the same space, like maybe if there's two kids that are crafty or, know, two housemates or two partners, if you're both kind of doing it and both creating the mess, it's kind of double the mess. So having that little trolley to put your part away. really helps the other person have the accessibility when they go to do it. So I think that's been really helpful for us. Yeah. speaker-0: And just, suppose, also giving you that space to actually do it on a table, but you've got the trolley there with all the supplies and not taking up all that. speaker-1: Do I keep standing up? yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, that's another thing too, isn't it? You can actually stay where you are and be able to easily grab it. Yes, yes. I'm just thinking if I had to get up and go to get something, I'd forget and I'd be doing the washing. speaker-1: Stay in the zone. 96. Yeah. speaker-0: So how do you come up with your creative ideas? speaker-1: think a lot of it is just really experimenting and exploring and play. think coming up with creative ideas is really like from experiences that I do. I'm not really a sentimental person but I do like to kind of reflect a lot. So if we do something together it's quite nice to maybe do a junk journal page about it and that kind of allows me to explore what were the favourite things that I did about it or Maybe if we went somewhere, what was the music that we were listening to in the car on the way there? I kind of like to reflect on the things that I'm probably going to forget. So I know that when we painted our first wall in the house a year and a half ago now, I remember that we painted the wall, but I knew I was going to forget that we were listening to this really good album at the time and that we had this certain thing for lunch when we were doing it. And so I did a junk journal page and included those things that I knew we would forget, but kind of really takes you back to the moment. that really allows me to get creative. ⁓ then, know, social media, there's a world, like a never ending world on social media of ways to get creative. So I have folders on both my Instagram and my TikTok where I save ideas too. So if I'm like, I really want to get creative, I've got nothing new, I can go back through there, see what other people have done, get re-inspired all over again. And I think that is really helpful having somewhere that you can kind of go back to. ⁓ And then I think the other way that I kind of like to be creative is whenever I need something, I try and like pause for a moment and think, could I just simply make it? And I think I have this desire for my life to be like colorful and whimsical. And if you make it, it like inherently is going to be more that. So yeah, I started this new job recently and I was given a key for the office and that key has just been sitting in the bottom of my bag. and I know for a fact I'm going to lose it. So I've been thinking, I need to buy a keychain, need to buy a keychain. And then I was like, I can just simply make a keychain. I'm sure I've got stuff to make a keychain. So this weekend, I'm going to be making a keychain with my beads and maybe some ribbon, you know, leaning into like, what do you need? Can you just make it with what you've got? And if you're a crafty person with just like stuff, probably. speaker-0: Yeah, yes, yes, yes. And lot of my clients are crafty people and they always have those little parts that they, you could make anything. Lots of things can cross over as well, can't they? Like it's like, because when I have done some categorizing with people, they're like, well, that could go over here in beads and then that could go over here in junk journal. actually, I think that's quite a lot of speaker-1: Exactly, that's right. Yeah, that's why I like too micro detail of categorizing because then I think you get overwhelmed and stuck on where does it go? also, sometimes you actually end up losing it. Yeah, because if I have my wire cutters, I'd have them in with my beading because that's generally where I use it. But if I had just tools, I don't know, when I went to use them for something else, I might not associate it with what I typically use it with. And yeah, sometimes too detail categories can actually make it harder to put things away, harder to find things. speaker-0: Yeah, and I love working with people as to find out how their brain would actually look for that item. Yes. what category would you want it in and just the way people work. That's really interesting to see. speaker-1: Yeah, because I feel like everyone would be quite different, it's, you know, where I would put something might not necessarily be where someone else would put something, but you know, because I use it with a certain thing 90 % of the time, I would have it with this. So yeah, I think that would make so much sense that you kind of work with people and what they're kind of typically using things for. speaker-0: Yeah. So what about if you've got a creative block like, most people, most people say they've got a creative block. What can they do? speaker-1: think perfectionism is the biggest thing that causes the creative block and my approach to battling perfectionism, I think I also used to be quite a perfectionist. think probably surely most people go through a phase where they are. I don't know anyone who hasn't struggled with that at least at some point in their lives. And I think my cure to perfectionism is this idea of crap crafting, where I've actually, my partner was quite a perfectionist when I first met them and I taught them this idea of crap crafting and I've seen the evolution of them getting so much more brave with creativity. And the concept of it is you try and make things that are quote unquote crap, but it's more about just make anything, make bad art. If you make the expectation bad, you kind of stop worrying about what it's going to look like. And then you can kind of enjoy the process a little bit more. And I think because you're not worrying about the end goal over time, that practice kind of allows you to make good art because you learn the skills that ⁓ most things aren't permanent. You paint something and you hate it. Cool. Paint over it. No worries. It'll dry. Paint over it again. That's not a big deal. doing a beading project, maybe you muck it up. No worries, unthread it. Like that's cool. No worries. You're knitting, you drop a stitch. Cool. No worries. Go back and undo your stitches. Like most creative projects are pretty, and home projects to a degree, I guess, are like relatively ⁓ not permanent. So I think by crap crafting, you kind of learn that skill. The other thing that you really learn is that like when you're kind of crap crafting and you make a mistake, It's so much easier to be like, ⁓ maybe I'll just do this thing instead. And you kind of work with it. You kind of go with the flow a little bit more. And then sometimes you end up creating things that you didn't really set out to, but like you end up loving them. And I think when you have this perfect idea in your mind, you lose the ability to end up somewhere else. And I think that's a little like sad, like it's really nice to kind of be like, ⁓ I'm actually just going to go with the flow. So yeah, crap crafting as a practice, I think is really helpful. And ⁓ it's almost like a muscle. think the more that you try and be creative, and I don't mean this in like a literal, like artistic, artistic skillset way. mean, it more of like a mindset creative way. The more you practice pivoting and doing something else, the more you practice redoing stuff in a slightly different way, it becomes so much less scary. And I think the comfortability in doing that allows you to go like, you know what, let's paint squiggles on our roof. And if we hate it, cool, we'll just pay it over it. it really, yeah, so many people when they come see our house, like, oh, you know, I've been stuck on my project. You know, I bought our house a year ago. I've done nothing. You know, I can't make a decision. And I'm just like, you know what, put all your, just all your things in a hat, pick one out and do that. if you hate it, cool, do the next one. Like it's really like most crafting projects are like having that craft mentality has really, really helped us kind of get through that perfectionistic block. speaker-0: I love that because it's also, see these when I'll go to people's home and I'll be like, I don't know, we can just put these drawers in the wardrobe and then we could put this here instead. And they're like, oh, oh, I never thought of doing that. it's like, we can always take it back. we not permanent. You can always move it back. Let's just try it and see how it goes. Yeah. And it's funny. It go on with people all through their lives, all parts of their lives. It's not just a craft. speaker-1: What? speaker-0: I do see it just that it's like, oh, no, I've never thought of, know, even the coffee, it's like where the coffee maker, maybe you can be here and put your coffee underneath in this drawer. Oh, but that's where the glad wrap and the alfoil and stuff. Yeah, but let's just move it. Let's put it somewhere else. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, you can just try it. Things like organizing, it's just so unpermanent. You can try stuff and it's not a big deal. We too, a lot of people don't like it, our pop draw in, you know how most houses have a set of four draws and you've got your cutlery in your first one, the utensils in the second one. There's a pretty standard, I reckon 99 % of houses follow that method. We ⁓ started putting our spices in the first drawer. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: It's like all of the labels, they're all like beautifully labeled and we have a lot of different spices. So the whole drawer, like front to back is spices. And most people hate it. Like they come over and want to use a spoon and they're just like, ⁓ my God, I'm having a crisis. Where the heck are your spoons? I'm like, they're in the second drawer. And we've even had people say that they've been like, you know, I'm going to like actually break into your house and swap those drawers around. bothers me so much. And it was a bit weird when we first did it for sure, but now we love it because we just keep that drawer open while we're cooking. use those spices so much more than we use the cutlery, so you just keep the spice drawer open and then you can just grab more spices, put them back. Like we love it! speaker-0: We are we. ⁓ that's a great idea. See, that's looking at that functionality and doing it. Because imagine if you had to have the second drawer open with this. speaker-1: You'd have to like lean down, it's too low. speaker-0: Yeah. I love it. I love those when you change things around and just try something different. Just try it. Yeah, that's a great, great tip around the crap craft. ⁓ And the thing is, I do see with creatives that they do do that because they'll keep a picture, a canvas, and I'll be like, ⁓ do you want this? And they're like, ⁓ yeah, I'll just paint over it and I'll be doing something else on it. So yeah, they just look at, yeah, I tried it. I didn't really like that, but I'll keep it and do something else over it another time. speaker-1: So many of my paintings have like four to five paintings underneath those paintings. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that leads into then sustainability. Like what's some of your things that you liked or you wish people would do more so they could be more sustainable and relating that even to being creative? Yeah. speaker-1: think there are so many things that you can reuse. We have a box of stuff that's kind of like, maybe we could use this, where it's not really like beading, it's not really embroidery. It's more like, I did a video recently of those labels that you get in the mail that are like, here's a call for an electrician and you meant to stick it on the fridge because it's a magnet. I was like, you can just stick a sticker on top of that or print out a photo and then cut around it and then you've got a full magnet. This is a great magnet. So those sort of crafts, have a box of stuff that's just kind of stuff that I reckon we could use that maybe is ugly in its current format. But then yeah, things like painting over paintings, like you don't have to throw a painting out because you don't like it anymore, paint another painting over it, or maybe you can do something really fun. I saw someone get, what do they call, dominoes? And they stuck a bunch of dominoes onto a canvas and that looked really cool as more of like a... Maybe like an elevated, higher, less colorful version of art. Like I think there are so many things that you can do to reuse crafts or even craft kits. Like maybe you were given a craft kit and you've got leftover thread in it or you've got leftover beads in it. Like don't throw them away because you've done the thing that it came with, but keep those things because you might be able to, you know, make a key chain for your work when you get given a key and it's loose in your bag. Like there are so many things that you can do to like reuse stuff in crafts or. yeah, turn things into stickers. There's, so many things, especially like this whole junk journaling movement now, which I'm loving, you know, people reusing their labels from their Coke bottle. Like people are reusing so many things with like, cause junk journaling is very similar to scrapbooking, I guess. It's just kind of like. speaker-0: Tell us a little bit about it. because I know what it is because I work with people who do it all the time, but I'm sure there's people who going, what is junk journaling anyway? speaker-1: Yes, I think like the background where junk journaling came from is scrapbooking, which, know, historically I had a scrapbook growing up and I think a lot of people did where you'd cut out photos and maybe you'd buy stickers and you'd buy like really pretty paper and you'd buy things to put in this scrapbook to make it beautiful. And in the last couple of years, at least anyway, there's been this massive junk journal movement, which is the same practice of scrapbooking where you're, know, talking about the things that you did recently, might print out a few photos to put in it, but then you also use things that encompass your day. So say you went out and you went to the movies, instead of just saving photos from the movies and maybe your movie stub, maybe you also keep, was there a coaster there that you put your drink on? Maybe you keep the coaster, or maybe you had your receipt from something that you purchased and you stick that in. Maybe the background is maybe on the way home. You got ⁓ some McDonald's and it came in one of those brown paper bags and you cut out the McDonald's logo and you stick that as your background. So yeah, the junk journaling movement is, you know, rooted in scrapbooking and wanting to reflect and make things look beautiful. But it's kind of like, don't buy the stickers. How can you make a sticker? How can you use the bags that your like food came in or yeah, people like peel off the like Coke or like, I don't know. drink. Coke is our soft drink of choice in this house, but you know, how do people use the Coca Cola, like label on the plastic bottles and use that. Or, um, when we get boxes like cereal boxes or biscuit boxes or anything like that, I cut out the letters and I keep all the letters in a, one of those like 24 compartment things. I've got like a thing of A's where I've cut out. So, know, less is going in the recycling and we use it for crafting. There's so many things like that where you can reuse what you've kind of got around the house. speaker-0: I love that about the scrapbooking, how it's changed and it's using what we have rather than going out and having to buy all this stuff. It's reusing what we already have within our homes. speaker-1: 100 % yeah speaker-0: So what is the best place for people if they wanted to connect with you and also they have to, you know, they have to check out your bathroom. ⁓ yeah, sorry, your toilet. I can't wait to see what your bathroom is going to be looking like. speaker-1: So I'm on Instagram and on TikTok and the app is Kirsty.creative on both. speaker-0: And I love that Kirsty, that creative, that is such a great name, isn't it? Thank you so much for your time and sharing with us ways that people can get motivated and creative in their own homes and also even reusing things around the house. You're so welcome. speaker-1: Yeah, it's pretty fun. hopefully someone feels inspired to paint some squiggles on their roof or start small with a keychain. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Thank you so much. speaker-1: Thank you speaker-0: Are you struggling to find ingredients to put a meal together? It's time to bring ease and order to your kitchen space with our free step-by-step pantry organisation guide. Our comprehensive guide walks you through each step to help you create a pantry that's both functional and organised. Head to simplyhappy.com.au to the resource tab to get instant access today. I'd like to acknowledge the Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation on which this podcast is recorded as the traditional custodians of the land. pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.