Why Cleaning Saves Money

So, as I said a little earlier I'm trying to get the house in better shape for the New Year. Its my goal to have things Ship Shape by January 6th. I stayed up late (for me, I work overnights, remember?) and made the trek down to Ikea for storage solutions (and got a reading chair for the bedroom), with the hubby's help.

In the process of "out with the old" I was cleaning out the closet under the stairs.  Its amazing how much junk accumulates there over the years. One of the things I found was an old film SLR that a friend of mine gave during one of her episodes of cleaning too.  Unfortunately, it needs work done and the lenses didn't work on my DSLR. However, I discovered it has a flash attachment that I can use on my DSLR. If you've been following me for a while you know I've been trying to improve my photography. Anyone serious about craft/sewing blogging knows this for a fact. Snug Bug went over that some time ago here.

So, I decided to compare it to the difference. I'm still working on my Sencha out of blue silk. I decided to do a bias binding on the neck instead of a facing. I'm doing a hand slip-stitch to finish off the back.  I took a photo using the standard one-directional flash and the newly re-discovered multi-directional flash.  See the difference, its kinda amazing. Of course, none of this will be very surprising to any of my hobby/professional photographers friends/acquaintances.

You can see where I have the binding pinned to death. That is the closest I've seen to what the blue looks like since I've tried to take photos of it. I'm stoked, really. This just saved me about $70 in equipment, which means I can go spend more on fabric. Right? Or shoes. Shoes are good too.

I was going to take photos of Simon in the Betsy Johnson pajama shirt but the poor thing is sick. He's pretty miserable at the moment. Aside from that, what does everyone else have "planned" for the New Year?