From the look of things on the Web, I missed a very important scrapper’s task in January. Apparently, the thing to do is this: Wake up one morning with your head resting on a box of Sizzix alphabet dies (where your pillow used to be), and suddenly realize that maybe it’s not quite, well, normal to live like this. In fact, most people don’t use their ice maker for housing color-coded embellishments, or store their patterned paper (sorted by manufacturer, of course) in their dishwasher.
Most people buy Altoids for the mints – not because the little metal containers make such cute storage receptacles.
Most people see used Popsicle sticks as trash, not as potentially alterable embellies for their scrapbook pages.
Most people have a life outside scrapbook supplies – dull and humdrum as that life may be.
When you come to the realization that maybe, just maybe your stash has gotten out of hand, you then decide that for the next 12 months you will break your heiny using it all up (and yes, "heiny” is a technical term). Or, in common parlance, you’ll spend the next year “stashbusting.”
I'm all in favor of that! After all, the more I use, the more space I have, and the more space I have, the better excuse I have to go shopping for additional "stash enhancement," as we knitters call it. As I gather from other scrapping websites and blogs, you’re supposed to come up with some guidelines or rules to follow for your stashbusting efforts, just so things are perfectly clear before you start. For instance, you might decide that you can buy additional cardstock, but no patterned paper. Or you can purchase items you need to complete an assigned project. And so on. So here are my rules for my stashbusting year. For the next twelve months (or really, the next ten months and seven days, but who’s counting??), I commit to not buying another single scrapbooking item, with the following exceptions:
1. Items I must purchase in order to complete a project that I started before my stashbusting pledge are exempt. These items include but are not limited to my 2007 annual album, my wedding album, my children’s “School of Life” albums, and my “Library of Memories” albums.
2. Items I must purchase in order to complete an assignment for pay are exempt. These items includes but are not limited to class samples, layouts for magazines, layouts I am thinking about submitting to magazines, and layouts I am not now considering submitting to magazines, but may do so at some time in the future.
3. Items I must purchase as supplies for classes or workshops are exempt. These items include but are not limited to classes or workshops I am taking or thinking about taking, and classes or workshops I am teaching or thinking about teaching.
4. Items purchased at stores that are going out of business are exempt. These items include but are not limited to fixtures, equipment, carpeting, etc.
5. Items purchased to make a gift for friends and/or family are exempt. These items are include but are not limited to cards, calendars, notebooks, albums, mini-cards, mini-notebooks, mini-calendars, and mini-albums.
6. Items purchased at a discount of at least 30 percent are exempt (tax excluded).
7. Items purchased while on vacation are exempt.
8. Items purchased while under duress (e.g., “You MUST have that QuicKutz font. Buy it. Buy it NOW”) are exempt.
9. Items that are or may potentially be discontinued are exempt.
10. Items that are pink or polka-dotted are exempt.
11. Items that include the words “As seen at winter CHA” are exempt.
12. Items that are or may become collectors’ items are exempt.
13. Items purchased with another use in mind but somehow ended up in my scrap space are exempt. These items include but are not limited to scissors, lunchboxes, paint cans, thread, etc.
14. Items purchased with a giftcard are exempt.
15. Purchases of giftcards are exempt.
16. Items purchased with PayPal funds are exempt.
17. Items purchased or received in swaps are exempt.
18. Items I do not remember purchasing are exempt.
19. Items purchased to replace a used-up, lost, or otherwise missing original are exempt.
20. Items I bought on impulse and then ended up not using are exempt.
21. Items recommended by a “scrapcelebrity” are exempt. These items include but are not limited to those sold on QVC and the Aveeno lotion that Cathy Zielske swears by.
There. I think that’s sufficiently restrictive. I feel better already.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, who wants to go shopping?