the great paper purge....

........goes on. Last night (late last night!) I started going through all of my 12x12 patterned paper to sort out the stuff that I no longer want/need/will never use. Wow! It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be! At first I was like, "Oh, I'll use that!" and only taking out a few from each color group. Then I started thinking, "Okay, this is INSANE! I have to get rid of this stuff! I will NEVER USE IT!" I decided that if I need something like it I will buy it for that layout and be done. I will tell you this much: NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER will I buy another Slab or massive pack of patterned paper!!!!! I can't believe that I used to flip out over those things, because I'm going through all of this paper last night and realizing that I don't like a lot of it and that it's just totally nothing that I would ever buy if I was at my scrapbook store. I must admit that the one thing that really got me going with doing this and being able to start the true purging was knowing where my purged paper was going to go. I had decided before I even started that I was going to donate it to our local Girl Scout Council. I think that having that planned out is what made the biggest difference in my being able to purge out so much paper last night. I know if I didn't have that planned out when I started, I would have managed to talk myself into keeping a lot more of that paper than I did. So, if you are wanting/needing to do a craft/scrap supply purge, I suggest you decide where your unwanted items will go. I kept telling myself that it was going to a good cause and someplace where it is really needed and could be enjoyed by so many girls. That really helped me out a lot. When I came to going through all of those papers from Slabs, if I liked them I kept 2 sheets and got rid of the 3rd. They all come with 3 sheets of each pattern. This way I have enough paper for a 2 page spread, if needed. The third piece went into my "give away" pile. I was up until 3:40 a.m. doing this! I didn't start until almost midnight! But once I started and really started getting serious with sorting through all of that paper, I didn't want to stop until I was done. I might go through it again and see if I can get rid of some more. When I look in my cabinet where it's all at, to me it doesn't seem like I got rid of that much, but in reality I got rid of 3 inches of 12x12 paper and another 2 inches of 8.5x11 paper. I also started a big zip-loc bag for stickers/die-cuts and another for usable pieces of scrap paper. Now I have room for all of my great kits from The Scrap Room and even some extra paper holders so that I can sort out the paper that I'm keeping a bit better.

So things are going good in my scrap area! I am determined to do some serious organizing in there and making room for the things that I really love is the first step in this huge process for me!

God Bless,
di