Month: August 2017

Project 333 begins

September marks the start of my Project 333, wearing 33 items for 3 months. I’ve spent the last week sorting through my wardrobe in order to make my choices. I quickly realised that I had a few different areas of life that I needed to cover…

  1. Mummy Days – these clothes need to be comfy and cope with being smeared with breadsticks.
  2. Work – I like to be fairly smart and wear different clothes to my mummy days, it helps me get ‘in the zone’!
  3. Speaking/on stage – this is a tricky category, these clothes need to hide the inevitable sweat-marks (lovely hey!) and most importantly enable me to attach a microphone battery pack to them without pulling my trousers/tights down (I learnt this the hard way once!)
  4. Smart clothes – because you know, one day I might get to go on a date with my husband, a real actual adult date!
  5. They need to cope with the UK weather!
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I decided pretty quickly that I wouldn’t include jewellery in my 33, technically you are supposed to but I love jewellery and have no desire to minimise (yet!) and this challenge isn’t about suffering. There you have it, my first confession of rule breaking! Also not included (legitimately!) are workout clothes, sleepwear and underwear.

Here’s my choices…

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Tops – 3x long-sleeved, 2x short sleeved, 3x smart, 2x vest, 3x jumpers, 2x cardigans, 1x hoodie
Bottoms – 1x blue jean, 1x khaki jean, 1x leggings, 1x smart jean
Dresses – 4
Coats – 1x lightweight, 1x warm/smart
Shoes – 2x heels, 1x boots, 1x everyday trainers
Accessories – 1x lightweight scarf, 1x wooly scarf, 1x hat

And so it begins. Some clever person worked out they could have 25,176 different outfits using just 33 items so I think there’s hope!

Project 333

I heard about Project 333 a couple of years ago, choosing 33 items to wear for 3 months. At the time it seemed a bit extreme to me! Courtney Carver started her first challenge back in 2010, since then it’s snowballed and thousands of people have decided to join in. Courtney blogs at ‘Be More With Less’, her stuff is great, go check it out for a much more informed read!

If you read my last blog you’ll know that I recently finished a year of buying no new clothes. One of my reflections was that I realised how little I actually wore from the vast selection in my wardrobe even after a huge clear out. It seemed like doing my own Project 333 was starting to make more sense.

Why?

I was asked this week why I’m even trying to do this. There’s three main reasons;

1. I’ve learnt that less choice and less decisions in any area of my life means more time, more space and more peace, I like these things and want more of them.

2. Challenge is good for the soul. The whole reason I set up this blog was to change my life, giving myself tangible and tricky goals is a sure fire way to elicit change.

3. It’s fun! I’ve already had lots of great conversations with people ranging from all out ‘what the…!?’ to ‘I’ll join you’. It’s fun to take on challenges together, I like fun and and I like people, this has the potential of connecting me to both.  

The rules…

  • Choose 33 items including clothing, accessories, jewellery, outwear and shoes.
  • Not counted – wedding ring, underwear (thank goodness!), sleep wear, workout clothes (but you can only wear these to actually workout…no hanging around the house in your running vest!)

One of the things I love about Courtney Carver is she says that the challenge isn’t about suffering and encourages you to get rid of broken or ill fitting clothes and even buy some new items if you realise there’s gaps in your wardrobe. Grace, grace, grace!!

I’m going to be starting at the beginning of September, finishing at the end of November. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be wardrobe planning. I’m slightly terrified at the prospect of having to choose which coats and shoes I’m taking into a very unpredictable British autumn! I’ll be back before the end of August to let you know my choices (the jury’s still out on whether I’m going to include jewellery in my 33!).

I put a little shout out on facebook the other night and several of my friends are keen to give the challenge a go. It was a surprising side effect of sharing my life online and I’m excited that some of you are crazy enough to join me! If you are going to do your own Project 333 let me know, we should definitely give each other moral support.