I'm one sack of scrap crap away from being a hoarder!

I save my CTMH and SU catalogs. I like taking them out from time to time for ideas. I've bought some stamp sets at tag sales and it's nice to see how they are used in the catalog.

Have you read the Marie Kondo book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up? It really helped me get past this mental/emotional block.

Yesterday I was trying to put kits together from my stash. I was happy to find some great supplies that worked well together.  Stuff that I wasn't sure I'd use is now very usable. But I also found quite a bit of paper that was downright hideous.  I didn't even love it when I bought it. I knew I would never use any of it but it still felt weird to throw it out.  I did throw out some and don't have any regrets.  In fact, now I wish I had thrown out more. I want to feel happy and inspired when I look through my stuff. Not like I'm looking through a dusty old bin at Goodwill.  

That being said, I understand it's hard to know what to keep and what to toss.  It can be overwhelming, tiring, and time consuming. Just do a little at a time.  
I threw out my magazines a couple of years ago.  I never had catalogs.  I figured there's more than enough inspiration online so I don't need to keep any in my house. 

I did toss magazines, from cooking to catalogs to Card Maker mags. I can get such a ton of images and recipes on line - and I downloaded years and years of the card maker mags. Tossed all the rest of it.

Donated a ton of books off my shelves also.

I got a box and put it by the front door. I filled it up during the week and dropped it off at the donation sight when I went grocery shopping every week. Pretty soon extra bedding, pillows, pots and pans I never used, metal kitchen utensils, all gone. Getting rid of that stuff is wonderful, and the more I did it the better I felt.

I do this, too. I also get my inspiration from various galleries and Pinterest. I print some of them, then toss them after I have scraplifted a page.

That's hilarious! 

Too freakin' funny.  Of course, haven't we all admitted to buying something only to find it already in our stash?  

As for the catalogs, I only have a few, but must admit I hang on to them for ideas.  I have ripped the pages out of magazines, so I don't have any more of those, but it seems there's a cute idea on almost every page in a catalog, lol.  Someday I'm sure I'll get over it, but for now I am definitely a catalog hoarder.

I got rid of catalogues and the last of my saved scrap mags this summer. Had a few twinges at first but they wore off.
I even got rid of my Mary Englebreit magazines- huge twinges afterwards, but they went away.

I still have hundreds of magazines. I think I'm getting closer to letting a bunch of them go. There are a few I use, but lots more I haven't touched in ages.

I'm still laughing at your phrase "sack of scrap crap"...

I got rid of a LOT of stuff about 3 years ago, then more about 2 years ago. I think I went through nearly every single thing I owned in April 2014. I sort of did the Konmari thing, actually, where I touched it all and then sent it off if it was not doing it for me anymore. But...a lotta stuff sparks joy in the scrapbooky department Before that, I gave away a ton of stuff to a lady on Freecycle. It filled the whole back of her minivan and some of the seats up in the passenger area as well. I also sold a bunch of stuff, probably about $1000 worth of stamps (meaning that's what I made from it--they were originally worth a lot more, although some sold for more than I paid). Then I just flat out pitched a bunch of stuff that was dried out, or maybe bent, or half used that I was never going to touch again.

I guess in doing all of that, I probably pared things down by about 40% or so. Maybe 50%. I didn't really mean to get rid of that much; it just happened. Mind you, I have been scrapbooking since 1994, so there was quite an accumulation.

I still have some Creative Memories albums and other stuff that I need to put on Ebay. I am never going to use them and they are brand new. Other than that, I think everything I wanted to get rid of is gone. There were just a few straggly things about a month ago that wasn't in the go-through stuff in 2014, so I went through it and probably pitched about 30% of it. Dried up old Color Box pigment pads, etc.

I do have a lot of stuff from even the early 2000s. If I liked it when I went through it, I kept it. That includes some KI Memories stuff, some cool weird embellishments that I just still dig, stuff like that.

I will flat-out call myself a hoarder. I own it. But I guess since I do go through stuff evvvvveerrrrryyyyy so often, it's not the end of the world. My children come up here to my little studio and tell me all the time that I have a ton less stuff than I used to. It honestly doesn't feel that way to me for some reason!

I'm fortunate that my city has a really great arts/crafts/office thrift store. It receives donations from businesses, schools, individuals, etc. so you never know what's waiting to be discovered, like items from scrapbooking brands of yesteryear, a school's worth of yearbook photos from the 60's, hundreds of plastic garlic bulbs, or a life size cardboard cutout of James Dean. I know that any sacks of scrap crap I send there will end up in a loving home. Of course, whenever I donate, I have to browse. Yesterday, I found a box of Nouvelles Images greeting cards still in their cellophane wrappers for a mere $0.25 each. I really had to restrain myself. Do you any of you have a store like this in your area? SCRAP

I think we can all relate. I'm long overdue for a purge.