Well, it’s the weekend, and I’m having a garage sale to get rid of items I’ve had in the garage for five years since I moved. Overall, I did pretty well, marking and boxing about 30 boxes of material and keeping about three. Ruthless is all well and good, but some things need to stay a bit longer.
But for those of you ready to clean out your studio:
Get rid of unwanted Direct Mail (and save some trees.) Here are five suggestions that would reduce a lot of unwanted solicitations and letters. And a way to end the junk mail.
Stop unwanted catalogs. This site requires that you know the name of the catalog (or company), but it is incredibly detailed, so you can get rid of only the ones you don’t like.
My first virtual snowflake of the year!
And if you need some fix-it help: Drooling for a pair of ultra-cool Christian Louboutin shoes–the ones with the red sole? Of course, you can’t stand the idea of the red sole wearing off–those shoes would look like the rest of us in the common ruck wear. Arty’s Shoes in Manhattan will replace the sole in a nice bright red for $40. Call Arty’s at 212-255-1451.
Or just stop worrying and make a virtual snowflake with virtual scissors and paper. It takes a bit of practice, but they all wind up looking wonderful. Best of all, you can email them, or save them to your computer, like the one above.
Or laugh at do-it yourself projects gone oh, so wrong.
Have a creative weekend!
—Quinn McDonald is hoping this is her last garage sale.
QuinnCreative 
A few months ago I found an even more effective way to end junk mail. Wait for a big raccoon to cross the road right by your mailbox at the exact time a car is coming, driven by a driver who will swerve to avoid said raccoon and smash your mailbox. My mistake was replacing the mailbox the next weekend — in the interim, no junk mail whatsoever!
As a side benefit, I made a potential scientific discovery: we can only find about 5% of the matter that has to be present in the universe. I’m still checking into this, but the answer may be a previously undetected form of superatomic particles, which mailboxes turn out to be made of! Smithereens.
Ahh, I am familiar with Smithereens–they inhabit the contents of blenders, but appear only when the lid is loose and blows off.