Using my stash

Digital scrapbookers have it easy. The only space we use up is on our hard drives. I see all the paper scrappers out there with their craft spaces full of papers, stickers, stamps, and who knows what else. And I think “There but for the grace of god…”. Because I know that if I were a paper scrapper, I’d probably fill my apartment up to the roof with pretty things. I am a natural hoarder by genetics and upbringing. It’s something I battle on a daily basis… but that’s a post for a different day.

A short history of my scrapping life… I began digiscrapping years ago, and like many scrappers I collected a crapton of freebies. I started buying things from my favorite designers. I joined Creative Teams. I would hit up the $1 sales every month. I’d say I probably spent $20-30 a month on digi supplies. Then I left my job. That was ok because I was on a site CT, plus working for SDD, so I got paid in product. I was rolling in kits. I still have a ton of kits from that time, many of which I’ve never cracked open in photoshop.

When SDD closed, I had to make some hard decisions about how I was going to get my “fix” every month. I did a ton of research to find out which stores gave me more bang for my buck. I’m on a somewhat strict $10 a month scrapping budget, so my dollars have to streeettcchh. I need to buy kits/ collections that have enough versatility to make more than one LO.

I’ve found one way to do this is to look for storewide $1 or $2 sales. Most sites have an event once or twice a month where the designers are given a color palette. The designers make several packs with those colors, elements, papers, word art, all kinds of things. Then the customer gets to pick between all these goodies and build their own kits. You know everything is going to match, but you’ll have several themes and styles to choose from. This also gives you the opportunity to try out new designers without too much risk.

As I was looking for tutorials to scrap for this post, I wandered around Shimmelle’s blog. She does a very cool series of posts where she makes a kit for herself and uses it to scrap throughout the month. And she really uses almost everything! I’ve been doing something similar since the beginning of the year, but I’ve never come close to using everything I buy each month. I’m usually pretty happy if I can squeeze three layouts from the kits I buy each month.

So I’m challenging myself! I’m going to take some of the kits I bought in March and see how far I can stretch them. Here are the pieces I bought at Gotta Pixel’s Grab a Byte last month. At the time I bought them, they were $1 apiece. They’ve gone up in price since, but they’re still available. Images are linked.

I think that’s a pretty good mix. I love all the trendy elements and fun pattern papers. The plan is to see how many LO’s I can make with these pieces. I know I’ll never use everything, but I’m curious to see how far I can stretch things. I can’t wait to start playing!

Note: I bought these myself. No CT involved. I do, however, have pieces from this kit by Simple Girl Scraps and this kit by Mandy King that have the same color palette. I don’t plan on using them for this personal challenge, but if I need something small, like stitching or whatnot, I’ll grab them from these kits and make a note in the credits.