Love This! Creating While Decluttering

My obsession continues...as today, we have another artists who does paintings of clothing. But wait! Before you roll your eyes at me and think, move on, crazy lady, listen to how cool this is: today's artist, Soledad Penadés, has painted each of the following garments as she has cleaned out her closet--as a way to commemorate each item that brings up memories for her (and therefore, that she has a hard time getting rid of). Pretty neat, huh? And she's made a book/art journal about it (!), discussing each item and what it means to her next to it's painting. I think it's a pretty genius idea for those of us who are pack rats and artists (um, this girl!), and that here are probably quite a few of us out there...

So, lets take a look at Penadés' very simple but fun paintings below:

Do you love them as much as I do? The great part about each of these paintings is that they're accompanied by a story--a story that helps Penadés hold on to the past, or the memory, associated with the item, without having to keep the item. It's brilliant. Makes me wonder how I could capture my favorite memories in a similarly creative way, without holding onto so much physical stuff from my life...

You can view more work by Soledad Penadés and take a look at (or buy!) her visual journal here. 

Oh, and similarly, I saw that best idea on Facebook the other day! I think it was originally from Pinterest, but it said this: Turn all of the clothes hangers in your closet backwards. Every time that you wear something, turn the hanger back around the correct way. At the end of a year, get rid of all of the clothes hanging on hangers that are still backwards. 

Pretty smart, isn't it? I'm going to do it, I swear...

How can you declutter your life today? How can you infuse a little creativity into the process? 

Namaste,
Mary Catherine