I think I have to admit, at least for myself; sometimes a girl CAN have too many scrapping supplies...now that will be the first and only time I'm likely to say that as well! I will however, stand by my belief that one can never have too many flowers or have too much bling…or be too rich! But everything else needs a serious talking to. Time to downsize I think...eeek do scrappers actually do that!?! My rationalisation is that a good clean out once every blue moon would be good for the creativity, and being able to find all your stash would be a novel experience! It would be like a fresh start…looking at all this though, wish those blue moons came more often!

Well whether it would be a good move for the creativity or not, I had no choice - I have to reduce my mega stash. I want to fit a huge 12 seat board room table into the shop area so I can run some crops, which means the shop has to expand in square footerage {yes, a Mistra’ism there} and I have to move out. The only space I have to move out into has less practical space than I have now. I’m evicting myself from my well loved scrapping space…and with it 2 years worth of scrap addiction evidence has to go; oh these crops had better be good!!

Like all war campaigns, we need a good plan of attack…and believe me this was war - Will Power vs. Total Lack of Will Power. With hubby nagging at my heels to stop talking about ‘purging’ and actually purge I have a plan, he said he’d help even, yeah not likely babe, I want some scrap stuff to stay!!

Step 1:

I have this huge bookcase, it’s nice and deep and I have no idea what’s in it anymore. So I figure if I don’t know what’s in it, I won’t miss it when it’s gone…right?!! So it’s all going into the bin. OMG, maybe we should have got a skip…too late…it’s going…calm down…panic attack starting…thoughts of ‘what if’…oh dear and this is just the planning part. OK, maybe if it gets relocated to a Trash and Treasure Box for my friends, at least then the bits might be loved again…that I can cope with.

Yes...there is a bookcase in there somewhere!!

Step 2:

Dump my drawers of chipboard onto the dining table and only keep the alphas I’ve actually used in the last 6 months. The rest shall go into the newly formed Trash and Treasure Box…

Step 3:

Same deal with the ribbons, embies, rubons, paints, inks, stamps, stickers, projects for later, half finished projects etc etc…yes I am starting to hyper-ventilate here…breathe Mistra…oh parting is such sweet sorrow…and NO, I’ve already said a girl cannot have too many flowers or too much bling…that stays put!

2 Days Later…

Well I was successful, Will Power won the battle…with a little help from a couple of friends, one coaching me on the phone, the other coming over and forcing me to keep on moving it all! I now have a fresh new scrap area and one that is closer to the Daz Cave {the boys’ computer hide-out}, no more traipsing up the other end of the house to the call of “Mistra… come look at this”!! I have all my stash neat and tidy and hubby is going to build in some shelves into the linen recess for the printers for me, which will also create some more ‘growth’ room for me.

So reducing your scrap stash doesn’t have to be a bad thing…you benefit from more space and a better idea of what you have, your friends benefit from generously giving your old supplies a new place to be coveted…and later you get to buy new stuff, because you actually use everything up! Now I just have to wait for the boardroom table to be delivered and really enjoy the benefits of relocating myself!!

The 4 boxes plus of Trash & Treasure!!

PS: the girls aren’t expected for another month…plenty of time to grab everything back out of the Trash and Treasure Boxes…but shhhh don’t tell hubby that!