Decluttering My Scrap Stash

Hi, everyone! Welcome back to Life on the {Scrap}beach!

The past few days I have been decluttering/purging my scrap stash. I did this about eighteen months ago when we were packing to move to Miami. I found it to be really helpful in my scrapbooking, since it reduced my stash to things I would really use & eliminated the visual noise created by supplies i would never use. Since new stuff from CHA is going to start hitting the stores over the next few months, I thought it was time to do it again. I think I'll start doing this twice a year around CHA time ~ January and July ~ so it's not such a big job all at once. Plus it's nice to make room for new goodies instead of just adding to what's already there & trying to figure out where to put it all.

When I went through my scrap supplies before our move in Summer 2008, I had a few motivations. The first was that scrap supplies are heavy & movers often charge by the pound. I didn't want to pay to have anything shipped that I didn't absolutely love and know I would use. There were a lot of those sorts of things in my stash since I had never thrown anything out & had purchased quite a few things in the beginning of my scrapping that didn't work with the style that I had developed over time.

The second was that our move also happened to coincide with a call from my local scrapbook store for donations of supplies for the troops overseas. The owner had been contacted by a morale officer looking for items the soldiers could use to make cards, scrapbook about their time overseas, etc. I was happy to be able to donate everything I purged that was new or nice quality to that effort, and that provided motivation to be strict with myself about what should stay and what should go.

This time as I was going through my supplies, I tossed everything I knew I wouldn't use into large flat rate boxes from the USPS. When the boxes were full & I was done going through my supplies, I taped them shut and sent them off to some young and/or new scrappers I know. It felt good to get the items out of my house, but to also rescue them from the trash and send them to some people who would get some use out of them.

One thing I realized as I was looking at what was left, is that I have a serious imbalance between my papers and embellishments. I have tons of paper and relatively few embellishments {comparatively}. So as I am shopping this year, I am going to try to be more mindful of what I purchase. Specifically, less paper and more embellishments, embossing folders, dies and Cricut cartridges. I need to go for things like ribbon, fibers, bling, pearls, flowers and chipboard shapes. I have plenty of inks, paints, Glimmer Mist and other art supplies that I can use to customize what I purchase and/or cut to fit specific projects.

I am sure some pretty papers will sneak in here and there, but I am going to try to focus the bulk of my scrapbook budget on embellishments and staples ~ not paper. I am sure it will be hard since I love paper, but I will do my best! :D

Are any of you in the midst of purging your supplies? What do you plan to do with what you cull from your stash?

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.