Take Something, Leave Something

I was flipping through pictures on my cell phone and found this one that I took of the Take Something Leave Something table at Shuttlebirds.  It was a great success.  I was very happy to get rid of a lot of Royal brand thread that I’m not going to use anymore and picked up a bunch of other stuff that I will use.

For the last 5 or 6 years I’ve been slowly paring down stuff by setting a rule that if I buy (or get without spending money) 2 things I have to get rid of (either by using up or giving away) 3 things.  By “things” I mean thread, yarn, books, cds and clothing interchangeably.  I keep a little tally going on my phone and this is the first year I’ve left Shuttlebirds “positive” (meaning I could have brought more home) despite the fact that I had gone there in the negative.

It’s a bit OCD, I know, but it’s worked really well for me over the last few years.  It’s never really stopped me from buying anything I want (that’s not really the point), but it helps me to stay on top of stuff by motivating me to clean things out and get rid of things I know I’m not going to use in the future.  My thread stash has definitely grown over the last few years, but I have gotten rid of almost all my yarn (except for some for tatting) as it became clear that I have very little interest in picking up crocheting again, and I have cleared out at least a bookshelf or so of books and cds.

Anyway, the best part about the table was that there wasn’t a bunch of stuff at the end that I got stuck with.    The second day we put out a donation bowl so that people could take something and leave a donation for Shuttlebirds.  I think that was a good way to do it.  The first day things needed to be replaced, but the second day you could leave money for Shuttlebirds.  I got the word out about it fairly late, but hopefully this was a good start to getting the word around.  I’m looking forward to seeing what appears on the table next year.