Out With the Old

I have decided to challenge myself to do some real work clearing out my old stash this month.  I'm looking to potentially relocate to another state and quite frankly, the ammount of craft items I'd have to haul with me is intimidating.  To do this I'm going to be doing double time 4 days a week.  Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I will be featuring 2 Fast Cards and Wednesdays will have 2 Hoarder's Hump Day pages.  Each of these days I will try and use as many of the same elements for both projects to try and cull the herd.

I would say "new year, new me" but 1. I've always disliked that phrase and 2. I don't have any delusions that this purging of the stash will become a real habit.

Today's cards aren't as closely related as I hope to make moving forward but they were made from the same background card stock and both are birthday cards.  

Since I'm mostly purging my collection I won't have many elements that I can identify.  This is all about finally getting rid of the excess (and hopefully not purchasing much more).

Identifiable Elements:

• Green flowers - Burlap Daisies from the "Forever in Time Paper Craft Collection" by MultiCraft Imports Inc.
• Floral background paper - "I Love My Family" by Echo Park Paper Co.
• Blue washi tape - "Summer Party" collection by Echo Park Paper Co.

Make It Work

Today's page inspiration came from a set of border stickers that I've had for quite some time but always found an excuse not to use.  I decided that today would be the day I would use some of them and find a way to make them work!

It really was a struggle for me to find paper and other elements that I found "match".  I've not been as on board with the eclectic style that I have seen a lot of lately in the scrapbooking world so it was difficult to remind myself that things don't need to "match" in order to "match".  (Do you think I've said the word "match" enough there?)

I don't hate the way this page turned out so that in and of itself makes this venture a success.  I was also able to use those bright blue letter stickers that I've deemed to bright to use on multiple occasions.  The page isn't too fancy but it turned out better than my negative attitude going into it had expected.

Identifiable Elements:

• Background paper - "Record" by Studio Calico
• Yellow flowers - Burlap flowers by Petaloo
• Blue pearls - Double Dot Jewels by BoBunny
• Yellow paper - "I Love Family" collection by Echo Park Paper Co.
• Red paper - "I Love Family" collection by Echo Park Paper Co.
• Border stickers - Border Stickers from the Random Collection by Crate Paper

Glitter Gone Wild

Today's page really tested my patience to make.  I impulsively decided to cover a majority of a piece of plain blue card stock in gold glitter to make a cool looking pattern, but I didn't totally think it through.  Not really a total shock given my personality.

While the glitter background turned out really cool, it presented a massive problem in which I couldn't get anything to stay glued to the glitter.  I ended up lightly scraping away some glitter to get glue and mini glue dots to stay attached to the page after trying multiple other techniques (I almost resorted to gorilla glue but wasn't sure how that would affect my photographs).

Despite the fact that this page took me literal days to make when most of my pages require about a quarter of that effort.  I really think it looks cool.  I'm not entirely sure how well it'll hold up, but we'll see.

It really should be used for a Hoarder's Hump Day since I can only identify one element in it but at the effort equated to the page being more than that.

Identifiable Elements:

• Jewels - Jewel Borders by Forever in Time Paper Craft Collection

Couldn't Wait 'Til Wednesday

This page probably should've been saved for a Hoarder's Hump Day but I'm just too proud of it to wait!  I'm super excited that I got to use the custom Thickers of glitter that I had originally made for a different page.  I had ended up not using them because I didn't think they worked but when I found these photos and realized the phrase and the date were right I immediately knew I had to work with them!

Lots of times I find myself trying to steer away from red and especially yellow so I'm really proud of myself for embracing this background paper.  I'm surprised at how much I ended up loving it!

I used a lot of things I'd been hoarding so unfortunately the pieces I can identify is limited.  It's my goal to eventually pare down my stash to only things that I name but I believe that's just a pipe dream at this point.

Identifiable Elements:

• Background paper- School Days collection by Bazzill Basics Paper
• Rhinestones- Adhesive Gems by Simply Creative
• Custom thickers- DIYthickers in Shoebox by American Crafts

Unique as a Unicorn

As much as I love this unicorn I'd been hoarding I just had no idea when I'd ever use him.  Luckily I found the perfect opportunity today and he finally is getting the recognition he deserves!

This lovely photo was taken of me as a child after a fall rain and the raincoat I was wearing gave me all the inspiration for this page.  It also made me think that I might want to start wearing more pink now (maybe, I'm still not sold on the idea).

Matching my photos to my pages is one of my favorite parts of scrapbooking.

Surprisingly, I actually can identify a lot of the elements on this page, despite the fact that it was yet another effort to purge my collection.  That in and of itself is quite the achievement!

Identifiable Bits:

• Textured paper rectangles- Two Scoops Cardstock by Bazzill Basics Paper
• Background paper- "Today" from the Recorded collection by Webster's Pages
• Wood paper- Wild Card collection by BoBunny
• Yellow letters- Summer Fresh by Simple Stories
• Pink rhinestones- Adhesive gems by imaginisce

Cruisin' Through My Pile

I worked a little more on chipping away at the pile on my craft table again today.  This time I found a stamp set that I really loved when I saw it in the catalog for Stampin' Up that my mom just dropped off to me.  Everything Eleanor is just such a pretty design to me that even though it's a flower stamp set (of which there are an over-abundance in the world) I still am drawn to it.  I chose to scrap a picture of myself when I was very little sitting on my grandpa's golf cart which I've always loved going for rides in.  It's a simple page, but that's mostly because my hand got tired from cutting out all the flowers with fairly dull scissors.