Today is my 33rd birthday. 33! 33 years of growing, loving, laughing, crying, and learning. I have been so incredibly blessed in my lifetime, and this year in particular, I feel the need to give back. 

Nine months ago, I took a leap of faith and joined KEEP Collective. I knew this business would be a game changer for our family. It's allowed me to stay at home with our sweet son while still having a creative outlet (and fabulous income!) for myself. I've been blessed and honored to help women (and men!) tell their stories and represent what they hold closest to them. KEEP has been so good to me, and deep down, I had a huge itch to give back. 

So when another designer posted her idea to create and donate Chemo Care Pouches this month, I knew it was something I wanted to be involved in too! 

The premise is simple: Customers purchase/sponsor a pouch. They can choose to donate a plain pouch, or, they can add Keys (aka charms!) to their pouch to personalize it a little more (awareness ribbons, a message of believe or faith, a cute little ice cream cone or butterfly charm for kids, etc.). The pouch itself is $29, and the charms range from $7-19, depending on what each person chooses. Once the pouch is purchased, it gets shipped to me. 

Then, I take all of my commissions on the pouches (and more, if necessary) and fill the pouches with things that patients going through chemotherapy might like - coloring books, crossword puzzles, hard candies, chapsticks, scarves, hand sanitizer, hot tea packets, iTunes gift cards... you name it!)! The pouch will have a tag with the name of the sponsor on it, or, it can be an in memory of or in honor of card too! 

At the end of April, I'll be donating these pouches to Memorial Hospital in South Bend. I spoke with the patient care coordinator earlier this month, and she was over the moon excited to know they would be receiving these gifts! I can't wait to deliver them! 

I know these pouches might seem small in the grand scheme of cancer. But if for one minute, we can make someone smile or feel better or know that a total stranger took time out of her day to think about them, that makes it oh so worth it to me! 

So what do you do if you'd like to help? Contact me at AngelaPuttDesigner@gmail.com, or, visit my KEEP website (there's an option to email me through there too!)! We'll choose the items you love most and put them together in a cart. It's really that easy! 

To date, 30 pouches have been sponsored, but my goal is to sponsor 50 or more, and I would LOVE to have your help to get there! 

Out with the old, In with the new: Purging the junk in 2016!

Waiting until I was 31 to get married had its perks. I purchased a house. Got my Master's degree. Traveled. Filled said house with memories, photos, and items. 

And then I met Dan, and it all fell in to place. We made this house our home. Traveled. Combined our entire lives. Filled said house with a LOT of duplicates of items. 

And thus, here we are, three years after he's moved in, and a lot of that stuff remains. We've had two semi-successful garage sales in the past few years, but we've been left with items each time. And thinking we would sell them at the next garage sale, we've held on to them. 

But now, we've acquired a baby, and all of the baby things and OHMYGOSH they have a lot of THINGS. So we're at that critical point where we NEED to get rid of the old to make room for the new. 

So what's the plan? 

Donate.
We've literally held on to an old crock pot, toaster, and phone for years thinking we would eventually sell them at a garage sale. We haven't. Is it worth it to me to hold on to it for another year to see if we can sell them for a dollar or two each? It's not. I would so much rather donate those items to someone who can really use them. So we called St. Vincent DePaul. Why that organization? Because they're coming to our home to collect it all. I don't have to load up the car with our baby child and all of our belongings and schlep it somewhere. It'll be gone right from our home, and that makes me hap, hap, happy! 

Resell. 
There are a few items that we'd really like to sell because they're in great shape (think, an entertainment unit we're no longer using and a CD tower that we don't need). But, we don't want to wait until we have another garage sale. So, we're utilizing a local Facebook selling group to post these items! This way, I can get rid of some of our bigger ticket items and make a little in the process. 

Don't let the clutter in. 
I'm notorious for having organized clutter. We acquire something and I stack or shove it somewhere so that it looks organized. This year, I'm trying really hard not to do that. If we get something new, it's going to find it's permanent home immediately. No more artfully stacked piles on the kitchen table or bedroom dresser. We put it in its forever home, or it doesn't stay! 

Follow the Declutter 365 Facebook group.
I love, love, love this group, because the organizer has broken everything down in to tasks that can be accomplished in 15 minutes a day. Today's task? Go through your kitchen utensils and purge the ones you don't need. So, like, those 18 wooden spoons we have on the counter? Today's goal is to work that down to, oh, I don't know, 10 (because really, will we EVER need more than 10 wooden spoons at any one time?!). This is something I can easily do once Henry is in bed for the night, and after 15 minutes, I get to stop and relax for the evening. Wins for all of us! 


What are your best tips for purging the junk? How do you get rid of it when it seems like there's just. So. Much?