Variations of Fall

At the beginning of August I started a challenge for myself. I decided that for the next year, instead of buying new things, I’m going to try and use every stamp, die, stencil, and embossing folder I have. I took my inventory and split them up between months of the year to give myself a guide for which things (and how many) I should use each month in order to use everything at least once in the next year. So far I’ve found it really fun and motivating to help “find” a reason to use each thing. I like knowing that nothing is going to waste. I’m also tracking how many times I use each thing, so by the end of the year I’ll be able to see which are my most-used supplies, which I’m looking forward to.

I’m pretty good about only buying something when I have a specific plan for how to use it, but I did count about 25 things that I had purchased closer to the months when I first started making cards that had never been used. It’ll be great to know those items have finally been used on a card!

I did make one exception for myself, since a year is a long time! I decided that any credit card rewards points I accrue this year can be used to purchase something that I really want, since that’s just free money. And since those build up slowly I’ll still be pretty limited on what I can use them for.

I like the focus on using what I have instead of always being tempted to buy new things. And I’m finding that it’s making me more creative as I think of new ways to use my current supplies, which is great!

I wanted to make a card using this stitched pumpkin frame and I ended up making six. I had a bunch of extra patterned paper so it felt good to use a lot of it up with different color variations in the same card style.