Storage "solutions".

Once you are storing things like this, there is almost no point owning those things. 1) OHAS, 2) Lazyness.

From all over Pinterest.

It LOOKS like genius. But carrying big tubs up a ladder and sliding them onto runners on the ceiling? I would never be bothered accessing them. It could only be really light stuff like pool noodles anyway.

Storage failure leads to a) not putting things away cos it's too annoying, or b) never getting them out because they are stored so deeply and you don't need them anyway, which is why you stored them in the first place, and then you forget you have them.

Here's an example: umbrellas. Failure is leaving it on the table because it's handy. Success is hanging it on a hook on the back of the front door because it's handy. That's a solution.

Another example: art and craft supplies. Failure is keeping it in shoe boxes all over the house on bookshelves and in the top of wardrobes. Sewing patterns here, paper stamps there. That's my current system. Success is getting it all out, gathering it all up, getting rid of stuff, and having it in one place where I can actually find it and use it—my art/utility cupboard, because I am now evicting the laundry powder and books.

I have twice as much art stuff as I need. Watch me cull! Thankfully I my flatmate works with kids so she can use a bit of stuff like that. She was actually really excited about an origami book I found cos she knows a kid obsessed with origami. That's the joy of getting rid of stuff: it goes from clutter, to pleasure-giving usefulness.

I have so many chalk pastels and I'm hopeless with pastels. So utterly hopeless. I can do pretty presentable work with oils, watercolours, pencils, charcoal. But all I do with coloured chalk is make a smudgy mess. I think it might be the paper. Anyway, it just goes to show that even an arty person can't just automatically make art with art supplies. Happily I've already found someone to take a box of pastels :)