◽ jbox ◽ is a box for 🧠🌈 neurodivergent folks and everyone who stores 👪🧺
BEGINNING
To be an undiagnosed neurodivergent mom was meaning to discover hidden sides of yourself, meet challenging obstacles and develop new coping mechanisms. When my son was born i suddenly was overwhelmed with myself and a chaos that surrounded me. It started when we were organizing our home to be babyproof and more child friendly. None of my belongings had a permanent home which was easily accessible. My old projects were hidden deep in drawers where they have never seen daylight and were long forgotten. Frequently used items piled usually on every available surface without any understandable order to my lovely husband. It was time for organising our apartment and it stressed me a lot.
STRUGGLES ORGANIZING MY HOME
First of all i got very anxious to find a permanent home for a lot of objects: what if this new home will be not big enough or too small, what if i choose a really bad placing? In my mind it should have been perfect from the first time. To overcome this i developed a trick to cheat my brain into saying: it is only temporary. Bam! Mind blowing, i know. It worked pretty well, and a lot of items found actually a permanent home.
But for frequently used things new homes were too complicated - they were hidden - so i didn't know what i had, or placing belongings back was too much work - like opening a lid. Things started to pile up on every empty surface again.
Then i got a tip from my sister who reads a ton of great books on self-improvement: “Get a basket! If it piles there - place a basket there.” And this was a game changer. It worked everywhere: floor, table, cabinets, and my favourite furniture of all - open shelves.
SEWING AS A NEW PASSION
This great adventure on organising my home gave me more time and space for a new hobby of mine - sewing. For months i was hyperfocused on sewing a new wardrobe for my kid and my mostly beloved sewing projects - t-shirts for my husband. And then i was like: "Hey, i can actually sew. And i can do something useful for my home, not only clothing".
After learning to sew different baskets, i created my own pattern and designed appearance of todays ◽ jboxes ◽ - outside neutral and inside bright. I personally like colours very much, but unfortunately i am very easily overstimulated by them. Therefore my colours of choice for living space are mostly white, grey and beige. Pretty boring but it keeps my mind calmer. I decided to use intense colours for inner of boxes, just to give some positive vibes without being too screamy.
LABELING EVERYTHING
My storage system looked very nice, but kept my husband busy with asking "Honey, where do we have an usb?" Decision was made on labeling these baskets. Since i am very visual person and words are too long to read, i tried my best to design some basic pictograms to label our bins. After sewing my first clipart label to the box i was horrified: i could not store anything else there anymore!! My previous brain cheat "it is only temporary" didn't worked anymore. I needed to think, plan and decide "right". And well, i did!
I had an idea to use a hook-and-loop fasteners for attaching my labels, so i could detach them when i need and use a new label. Finally, my sustainable storage solution could change with me and our family needs. I was thrilled and my husband asked me if i want to start a business with my unique boxes.
NEW BEGINNING
I was diagnosed with ADHD and started my etsy shop!