Too much paper vent

Sitting on the bench next to ya! I am overwhelmed by paper.

For me, it was recognizing that how I want to scrap and how I actually scrap are two different things. I actually scrap when things are sorted by line or theme. I would love to be able to mix lines or grab random papers that I just like, and have everything look great, but that ends up with hours spent looking at stacks of paper and never finding what I really want. Having a small packet of matching paper makes it so much easier for me. Or grabbing the plastic box that is just Halloween papers. What also works for me, is to start with paper I like and find photos I think would go well with it. Instead of starting with the photos, and then spending hours not finding that right piece of paper. This means I never scrap chronologically. Not even for in a vacation book.

And yes, organization is possible. I am sure my paper stash, if stacked would be taller than my husband. But it is very tightly organized. Cardstock and patterned. This is the easiest place to start. I have a cube with shelves for all my stacks and kits. Then I have project boxes for the big themes: Christmas, Halloween, Disney, and paper I bought specifically for a specific vacation. So right now I have a Hawaii box and a Spain box. Then I have envelopes with smaller themes: Zoo, Hiking, Universal Studios, Lego, etc. Or envelopes with manufacturers sorted by line. So all my BG, Echo Park, October Afternoon papers are together. I only have about 2" of paper that are leftovers that are simply sorted by color.

The key is you have to be committed to sorting it. Don't even attempt to do it all at once. 10 minutes a day, until it's done. And do it fast. Some things will be easily sortable, some won't. Can you think of 5 types of photos you want to scrap (school, sports, vacation, holiday, etc.) And go through the stacks looking only for those types of papers? Skip all the harder to classify stuff until the end. So if you find yourself asking, "where do I want to put it." It goes in the "later" stack and onto the next piece. My first sorting boxes were priority mail boxes, but the shopping bags would work just as well to help keep things separate if you don't already have a bunch of paper storage options. If you get your "Wants" organized, it will make it easier to scrap those things at least, and then either might find yourself more motivated, or you can ignore the rest of the mess until a later time, while still feeling like you are making scrapping progress.

I am donating about 1000 sheets this week to my son's former school. There is no market for it now. The paper is mostly flimsy, single sided paper. They will love it and I am happy to get out of of the basement. I still have pretty paper that I love and will use. This is just other stuff that came in kits and things. I have to let go of it. There is more than I can use.

You can NEVER have too much paper!!

What if you started going through it in small amounts of time and start organizing how you will use it.

With all the paper I have, I don't feel bad for organizing it in different ways either. I keep kits/collections together. Then I have types together - wood grain, polka dot, tone-on-tone, graphic, graph, etc. In the same vein, some moods: feminine, masculine. Then some by themes: Christmas, love, (I want to add the seasons in here).

Hello. My name is Loydene and I'm a paper hoarder.
I totally hear you. I totally understand what your are saying and what you are feeling.

I don't have a clue what to do about it ... and I'm probably not going to do anything about my hoard ... yet. But I know I will have to.

Good luck!

Yes, you can have too much paper. And I really think you are there. If you have so much that you can't find what you need, then its time to donate some. 

I would start by picking a pile, and however big that pile is, tell yourself you need to only keep 1/3 of it. Pick 1/3 of it to keep and either donate, trash, burn, etc the rest. Get rid of it immediately before you can change your mind. 

Color me impressed! I always start a new hobby with the intention of only buying for a particular project and finishing that up before buying more. The closest I have come is jewelry making, and even that doesn't compare to 11 pieces of paper for Scrapbooking.

I don't really purge my paper because there isn't anyone here who really wants it, and I am really hesitant to toss out something that I paid good money for (I know this is flawed logic and I am trying to get over it).

I think the key over the last year or two for me is to stop seeing the paper as so precious and just start using it. I have some paper that I love and I know I will scrapbook with it. I want to see it in my albums with my photos. I don't mind hanging on to this paper and try to keep it organized (but I have a LOT). I do have some other paper though that I don't really want to scrapbook with...it looks dated, ugly, doesn't go with my photos or style, etc. A lot of this is paper from paper pads or collections that I bought without really thinking. I have been making a real effort to just make a dent in this portion of my stash. I have started using it to make cards and envelopes, pillow boxes for gifts, using it for backing sheets on layouts where I want to layer more precious paper on top, making dividers to organize my project life cards, etc. If the paper is ugly and single sided I am content to use the backsides when I need a sheet of white paper.

I can't judge your paper stash because I have a ton of paper too!

I did purge some paper today. My criteria for what I purged was the following do I love it/is it still my style (no to any distressed vintage stuff)/is it in color palettes I tend to scrap in.

For my stash I sort my 12x12 by a few different ways. Halloween/valentine's/christmas/travel/school/hunting/boy are stored with their embellishments. I use those 3 drawer 12x12 sterilite units for them.

All my October Afternoon paper collections and embellishments are stored in the plastic 12x12 pouches from Michaels and then placed in canvas cubes in my kallax unit. I store my oa stuff separate because oa needs to be worshiped lol. I have pretty much every collection!

12x12 collection packs(ones with papers and sticker and alpha sheets) that aren't any of the above are stored on a shelf on my kallax unit.

For loose 12×12 papers that aren't themey I store them my color. They are stored in the sterilite 3 drawer 12x12 units. I have specialty papers in the top drawer this includes glitter/corragated/grunge/vellum/window sheets

2nd drawer has acetate/patterned vellum multi colored pp/woodgrain and brown

3rd drawer has red/pink/aqua
Black/grey/grid
Yellow/green/blue

I have a drawer of just new patterned paper I bought this past 6 or so months. It's a mixture of different companies from various LLS. This stack of paper alone is embarrassing lol.




My 6x6 pads are in 2 plastic baskets from target arranged by company unless christmas/valentine's or Halloween.

This is roughly how I have my paper, too. I started purging whenever I grab a theme or collection. If I don't love it, can't imagine how I would use it, or wouldn't buy it again, it goes in my purge box.

There are always "ugly" papers in a pad or collection. I purge those right away.

I have never regretted or missed anything. I still have a large stash. I am far less frustrated digging through my stash looking for a great paper to use.

I donate to SIL who manages a senior living center or to my neighbor to take to the elementary school she where she works.

Have you ever gone through one of the free organizing classes you can find online? Places like Scrapbook.com and ScrapRack offer some pretty intensive organizing classes that really make you stop and think about how you scrap and the best ways to sort your stuff so it can actually be used.

Patterned paper is a particular devil to sort because many papers could be categorized in multiple logical ways which makes it tricky. The easiest way to start is to first go through ALL of it, pattern by pattern, and decide if it's something you'll honestly ever use. Anything you really won't use put it in a box to get rid of one way or another just to whittle what you have down to what you're actually wanting to keep.

Because I mostly scrap by theme, when I was going through it all (what I call a pre-sort), I set out about a dozen empty Iris bins labeled on the fronts with the themes I actually scrap or know I have photos I want to scrap. (Included with my theme boxes were things like specific themed kid birthday parties, specific vacations we went on, etc.) When I was going through the stacks of paper (and some of it was literally 15 years old) it would either go into the purge box (paper with themes I knew I'd never use, anything just plain ugly) or it would go into one of my theme boxes, or if I wasn't sure about it I had a "misc" box. If I knew a paper was bought specifically for "DD's 3rd Birthday" it went straight into that box. I discovered as I went through this process that some new categories popped up that I hadn't considered initially, so I was glad I had a few extra boxes on hand that I could add. For example, I had a stack of baby boy paper that I'd gotten in convention classes, etc. and since I have only a daughter I originally thought "I'll NEVER use this..." and had it in the purge box. But after doing a bit more sorting, it occurred to me that I have a HUGE stack of DH's childhood and baby photos that I want to scrap at some point for DD, so I started a new box specifically for those photos.

By the time I got done going through most of it, I had a stack of neat labeled bins for all of my logical themes I might scrap, a good sized miscellaneous box, and a HUGE box of paper to purge. At some point I could go through the miscellaneous box again and decide if I want to sort it out by color or some other way, but at least I had gone through it all, every single sheet, so my memory was newly refreshed on what I had and where it was.

As for your comment RE: hesitating to get rid of your extra Air Force papers and stuff, I think that kind of thing I would probably be inclined to hang onto. Even though you are done scrapping your own photos, like you said it's highly likely that you might have a use for some of it again in the future for a related event based on your history, so it's easier to just keep it than it will be to try to replace it later. But something like my DD's themed 3rd birthday? When that group of photos is scrapped I doubt very much I will need any of the specific 3rd birthday stuff again so it will be easier to purge the rest when I'm done with it. Any generic birthday stuff could go in the general birthday box, anything with generic patterns that didn't get used (if I still like it) can go in the miscellaneous box or get purged.

I won't lie to you, I have a LOT of paper too (seriously, like A LOT a lot) and it took me many weeks to get through it all. (Disclaimer, I was also going through all of my embellishments too so that did add some time.) I set up the labeled bins along my counter and used my center island as a "triage center" of sorts so I had a place where I could stack things while I worked on getting it sorted as I unpacked the various containers it was in. If I wouldn't have had an open space to work where I could just walk away from it, I would have had to clear an area (even if it meant stacking other stuff up temporarily so it was out of the way) and using a folding table or something if necessary so I would have a place where I could leave it undisturbed until I was totally done going through it. 

Good luck, you can do it and you will be SO glad you took the time to plow through it once you do. I found so much great stuff going through all of my treasures that I had completely forgotten about, and now it's all in labeled bins that I can easily go back to once I'm ready to sit down and actually scrap something. And don't feel bad about letting stuff go. Think of it instead as blessing someone else who will actually use it and love it.

How long ago did you complete your big sort?  Would you mind telling us how hard it is for you to find paper?  If you are scrapping a birthday, do you just grab your birthday box and use whatever is in it, or do you rummage through the other boxes to find something else you might decide to use?  Are you using just Iris boxes to store your papers?  If so, how are the boxes stored?

Your sort method intrigues me, and I'm asking questions to help me visualize if this sorting method would work for how I scrap.  What I am doing now is obviously not working!  I do scrap everyday sort of photos so I don't know if a themed approach would necessarily work for me, but it might...

I hope you don't mind my questions and appreciate your time in answering them!SaveSave

Is it really about the paper though? It's not usually. The paper might just the way the deeper issues express themselves in your life.

It sounds to me like this is way beyond too much paper. This sounds like it must be making it difficult to live in (eat, sleep, move, clean) your house comfortably. It sounds like you're holding on too tight to things out of fear that you won't be able to handle it if you can't find the exact right paper that you think you need. But if you have so much, how can you possibly know where anything is, or whether it's really the "best" option, not to mention how can you use it if all your space is taken up by your hoard?

Honestly, I think you should talk to a counselor/therapist about what's really wrong - the mental illness aspect, as you say -- the fear or the need to hold on or control things or maybe perfectionism. I'm not sure if you have trouble making decisions or if you've perhaps suffered a loss that's made you hold on too tight? But I'm guessing that this didn't come out of nowhere and that this isn't the only thing that's out of control in your life. (Obviously I'm just guessing here based on my own experience, and I don't know you at all, so forgive me if I'm completely out of line. This is all said with a big virtual hug).

In my experience, until you address how you're thinking and feeling about I don't think organizing advice is really going to help much. At worst you might just end up buying a whole bunch of storage solutions that end up taking up even more space...