At what point do you throw away...

I find that really hard. I was doing a little tidy in my scraproom today and had to have a debate with myself over little bits of pp & cs left over from card making. Crazy! I felt bad throwing away 2" squares of stuff!

A lot of times I don't. I tuck the little bits back into the collection package or into an envelope of colour coordinated bits. And card making, especially, I often dig out those little bits and use them for diecuts or for backing for those diecuts.

I do get frustrated with stuff that is sticking where it is not supposed to, though, and will part with errant stickers or rubons if that is what they are doing. But I have tons of sticker sheets with nary an "e" or an "n" or a "t" to be seen, cutting up other letters to create the missing ones. The other day I was so focussed on making sure I had the e's and r's that I didn't realize that I had no "O"s in the set until after I started gluing the title down. Ended up using little circles (punched from some of my mini bits of cs) and topped each with a little heart (from another partial sticker set) to create 3 o's.

(Oh yeah, and that little badge at the lower right?  Saw one just like it on a page in my 2013 album, so I guess that is when that partial sticker sheet was a full sheet}

I shared this in another thread, but here it is again:

brotherhood by Gramma Dee, on Flickr

When that happens, I pride myself in my hoarding just what I needed. At other times I am simply overwhelmed by how much CRAP there is in here, and can't find anything!

KEEP IT ALL.

I am trying to throw things out like that (donate or what have you). Gut says what if I have more paper from this line and want to use it? I need these rub ons or brads or what have you.

I've gotten much more brutal about throwing things away. Last night I cut up a partially used sticker sheet. I kept the stickers I like and filed them by color in my little boxes. There were some stickers I couldn't think how I'd use them, so I tossed them.

I find I am a much happier and more productive scrapper if I only have stuff I love and want to use around me. Everything else gets tossed or donated.

I would not keep sheets of rub-ons that irritate me by being stuck to the sheet. Toss them!

I keep it all. lol. OK, sometimes the mood strikes and I just have to toss something that I'm not enamored with. Usually it's during clean up and I'll start getting lazy about putting things away.

For rub-on, I'd just use them in my art journaling in random spots. You could totally do that for a background in scrapbooking too, I just don't tend to get that messy most of the time on my layouts.

Sorry!  But they look so good as a layer in mixed media!! lol 

-  I throw out the negatives after a die cut too, but I will sometimes die cut something to use the negative with texture paste or paint.

That is a GREAT way to fill in your 'O's on your layout grammadee! Adorable!

**hanging head in shame** I am horrible at throwing scrappy supplies of any sort! What if I need that 2" square?!

I keep a bowl on my desk that I toss all my small scraps in because sometimes you do need just a small bit of something to layer or punch something out of.  I also toss things that I punched but didn't use in there.  When I need a little something, that's the first place I look.

Euro child from parents born in the decade after the second World War ended and with family that lived repressed under the Franco regime in north-eastern Spain. Needless to say, my grandparents and parents are thrifty and careful with throwing things out. I still apply some of their tricks to my daily life: I pick up a coin when I see it in the street, no matter how small it is (even a simple euro cent) and I always use the chicken carcass to make stock instead of throwing it straight away. However, a lot of their thrifty quirks are not helping in today's world of consumerism. We have access to far more (cheap) goods than they did when times were rough. And it's important to keep that in mind.

If it isn't useful or brings me genuine joy (without any added stress or question marks), it goes. I've been binge-listening to The Minimalists podcasts lately and that has reenforced my beliefs even further. Keeping stuff is a form of investment that can take over your life. It's physical clutter taking up your physical and mental space.

If you've got little kids around you, the rub-ons and stickers in not-so-great shape could represent a fun way to embellish a cheap colouring book but I wouldn't keep it for that reason without a specific end goal in mind, that is to say a date. I've hoarded three sheets of puffy stickers I know I won't use for my spreads as I don't like them (but they came with kits) to use them to decorate my wrapped Christmas gifts. What won't be stuck on there will be given away to the small children of the family during the Christmas break so they can jazz up some of their drawings as the adults break out the champagne and have loooong boring grown-up conversations.

OMG. This is my problem, too! But listen. All those sticker sets? I don't use the numbers up much and I did a few advent calendars this year and I had numbers for all of them. Didn't matter at all that nothing matched. They just looked charming.

I am working, very, very hard to throw away scraps of paper. I have a file system that I use for smaller scraps, but I decided that if it were smaller than 1/4 page, I would throw it away. It is hard to do that!!!

LESS than a quarter of a page. LESS!!!   But that makes me feel much better that it's hard for you all as well!!