Something different this FF@F...
Let's talk about 'hoarding' & holding on to too many craft supplies!
(This card was made well before 2006 and was one I'd given to my dearly parted mother, she got a real chuckle out of the humour in this card back then)
Lately I have been reading some very interesting comments about buying Designer Series Papers (DSP) and in general any kind of printed patterned papers. For example not being able to chop it all up as it's 'too pretty', 'limited edition', or 'I can't use it fast enough'. Also suddenly realizing you've got too much and don't know what to do with it all, feeling bad you think you've been wasting money on product just sitting there being looked at. They are all thoughts many papercrafters/artists have without doubt.
At a recent OnStage Live event in Auckland New Zealand, #Sara Douglass, CEO of Stampin' Up! talked about making your own backgrounds, making do with what you have when you don't have spare money to have all those pretty papers at your fingertips. Be it cost, or back years ago when there just were not the products we have today to choose from, creativity with just inks and card and/or paper stock become the tools you can make your own with. I've talked about making my own backgrounds over the many years I've been paper crafting. People have asked me about my blog headers, my Facebook headers. They are all originally white sheets of cardboard I have hand coloured with what I have at my finger tips in my little house. I've then scanned them and used them to make my own unique styled digital graphics & images.
I was chopping up loads of 12 x 12 long before #loveitchopit started. I have found because I had so much DSP I still haven't used it all. For a long time I'd stopped buying DSP because I'd been on a few design teams over the years, before my Stampin Up demo days started. I was a bit spoiled and received a lot of free or heavily discounted papers amongst other paper crafting supplies. When a couple of years ago I lost thousands of dollars worth of papers/cardstock and sadly even wood mounted rubber stamps, due to a leaking roof up in the office behind our garage (it's separate from our house) it made me stop and realize just how much money had been spent and how much I could no longer give away because it was destroyed. I didn't find it for a long long time and it was heart breaking knowing when and where I'd got a lot of it and whose money I'd used to purchase a lot of the paper (I've a very generous husband).
So whether you are in to love it chop it, Marie Kondo styled decluttering, sharing/giving away your creations, it makes you think about what's important and makes you think more creatively when suddenly what you thought you had has gone and you can't get it back. Am I making any sense here? The Love It Chop It Facebook group has been very 'liberating' for so many of us. I keep coming back to an old saying "if you don't use it you will loose it". So apt when I think about all the supplies I had to toss in the garbage bin. Not to mention when one stops and looks at just what you've accrued in a 12 month period through earnings, rewards, gifts, freebies. I'm having to stop buying paper for a while til I use up what I have.
Ideas for using up patterned papers or even making your own patterned papers.
- join same patterned sheets together and create gift bags when you need then
- use them to cover books/art journals and the like
- use them in collage,
- use them in card making of course (that's a given LOL)
- use them as backgrounds for scrapbooking layouts (also another given considering many were originally designed for physical scrapbooking)
- making gift boxes out of them - many good quality DSP such as Stampin' Up!'s range are quite thick and sturdy so gift boxes are great!
- use inks, brayers (both sponge & rubber), spritzers etc and plain white to make your own background papers
- cover/decorate pretty tins with patterned papers
- 3D gifts, paper cups, boxes/storage items, treat bags, stationery compendiums etc
I'll leave you with a little slideshow recap of some of my creations over the years on what I've used handmade patterned papers for, what I have made using DSP for other than scrapbooking or card making too.
[gallery ids="1202,1203,1204,1011,888,860,835,113,290,574,611,832,872,543" type="slideshow"]
Three D paper tea cups made using up DSP 
so til next time, remember
happy stamping colouring & creating!
Possible products you can use to make our own backgrounds that are available in my online store listed below. Please note, some items may be close to selling out due to the new Annual Catalogue being released on 4th June 2019.
Product List
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