Another round of purging

For me, everything I scrapbook/craft with are items I selected and purchased. None of it was random gifts given to me by well meaning friends/relatives that would be easy for me to donate otherwise because I have zero attachment to them - things like candles, lotions, random "collectible" items, etc.

I put 1.5 inches of random scrapbook paper on my local Buy-Nothing, as well as some Iris cases. They'd been sitting in my kids' room since January because they didn't fit in my scrap corner anymore... One had 11 people interested and the other had 24.

I still have 6 paper pads (gifts from my mother-in-law) to put on there... and I'm debating getting rid of my Cricut and cartridges.

I have the bad habit of buying it faster than I can use it. I’ve been working on organizing my room. I hope that as I reacquaint myself with some of my stuff, it will eliminate the duplicate buying, slow down the buying and increase the creating. I have a hard time getting rid of something if I still like it. I have lots of old wooden stamps, but I can’t bear to part with them because I still like them. I haven’t used them in years, though. I think I just need to use it or lose it.

My problem is when I go looking for something I know I have, and find something else I had forgotten I had ... then go off to a completely different project. Yet I still wonder why things don't get done in my studio.

🐿!  I get it. 

I call that Ninja packing, the ability to take a full space and rearrange to make more stuff fit....it is a gift and a curse all in one  .

I had a massive purge a few years ago in my craft space but I really need to get into my room and be ruthless. I have been bringing in way, way more than I have been using and I recently acquired a ton of exceptionally good scrapbooking supplies from Marketplace and I literally can't fit it in anywhere.
Part of my reluctance to let go of stuff is the what if I can't afford to buy this again. I remember a time when we didn't have any spare cash and supplies were a super treat to be able to buy. These days I can buy more but that fear of being back in that position makes me a bit of a stash hoarder.

Yes, that. We are creative people. We can see the potential, if only we had the time and energy… but the thing is that managing and organizing and cleaning all that stuff (in our houses, if not in our craft rooms too) takes a lot of time and energy we could be using on crafting

Oh, how I love my local Buy-Nothing group. I've been purging my entire house since the pandemic started. It's been so nice to put items on there that other people can use instead of having to drive to donate or throw away. My local Buy-Nothing group just started a round robin for scrapbook supplies today. I signed up to add my pile of purged items and potentially find a few treasures. I like knowing other like-minded crafters will potentially get use out of my discarded items.

I've posted this before, but when I moved from one state to another, I ruthlessly got rid of probably 60% of my craft supplies. That was 10 years ago. I'm still having the problem of "I know I have XXX". Well, turns out I got rid of XXX during the pre-move purge. So I've swung the other way and started to hoard now and have far more than I can ever realistically use. And I'm still buying. It's time for another purge. I could probably spend two months worth of evenings after work getting my craft space down to a realistic level, but I have a mental block now. I don't want to let that stuff go. It's probably going to take another move and the reality of packing up my hoard to spur me into action again. And I have no plans to move.

I did start marking my stamps and stamp sets with a little sticker when I use them a few months back. I haven't figured out the time period, but I think after a set period of time I'll go through my stamps and anything that I haven't used and therefore doesn't have a sticker, I'm obviously not going to. It's also influencing me to try to find stamps that don't have a sticker on them and using a bit more variety from my collection than the same standard sets I reach for time and time again.

The round robin came my way yesterday. You talk about some vintage supplies - Scrapworkz, CM, ProvoCraft patterned paper...it was a trip down memory lane for sure. The next participant said she was a CM consultant in the early 2000s and stopped scrapping in 2008. She has a lot of stuff to unload too.

Slight hijack: The old saying of what is old is new again often holds true with craft supplies. I am curious how this round robin works.

Nono! Sorry to disagree with you, given I don’t know you and my pea time has not been long. But that was a big success. Really!

Once during a phone call with a professional organizer (in a phone/on-line decluttering group session,) I was bad mouthing myself that after I purged books and went back a month later, there were another 10% I pulled to donate. I asked why there was always 10% more - what was I doing wrong?

She said it was like if we read a book a second time, or see a movie a second time, we always see things we didn’t the first go round. And when we start a new purge of a collection we tend to move quickly - keep-toss-donate, etc. Later on we are more able to fine tune the process by looking at far fewer items - it’s not so overwhelming.

Since then I look at it purging any collection - washi, books, stamps, etc. - as a two-step process - the quick and fast, and then a revisit. Just my take - that you did good.

This, and also will it be there to buy if you want it? The way things are going in the crafting world, I am keeping my supplies right now. I mean, if I don't love it or it is crappy (hello dollar stamp) it needs to go, but for the most part I am keeping these days.

I am in the beginning stages of a purge. The first to go will be baby items — our daughters are finished giving us grandchildren so 80-90% of the specific baby stuff stuff will go. I’m considering listing bundles on FB Marketplace or selling at the LSS Garage next month.

I’m also getting rid of Halloween stuff — I don’t celebrate Halloween but still have a stash. It should be easy to say goodbye, right?

Washi tape will be evaluated too. I like washi and use it in my projects. I think I will use more when I get rid of the ones that I don’t love.