The Bet - One year without buying scrapbook supplies!!

[mom2faith]

Thank you!! I had to brag a little and I knew fellow scrappers would understand!

The first few months were the worst, but once I got past the hump, I was not giving up at tht point!!

To be honest Miss Mary Poppins, I just avoided the stores all together. It was easier to not know!!

The worst was going to crops and seeing the stuff everyone else had.

But, seriously, it was out of hand!! I had far too much stuff!! I am so glad I did it.

Thank you again, I cannot wait to join the Ban Wagon!!

 

[flamingglobessigmund]

Hi all,

Just taking a moment to share a bet with all you scrapbookers.

I am the worst when it comes to buying the newest and greatest items and my scraproom recently got out of control!! I could not even find things anymore and then there was all of the stuff where I could say "Oh, I forgot I had that - and went and bought at least two more (seriously!!)

Last September (2009), I was in my room and said to DH that I thought I could go a whole year without buying scrapbook supplies and still scrapbook. He said, "I'll take that bet" and so it began....

We had rules and judges and there was $50.00 on the line.

I was allowed adhesive, cricut mats and blades, and plain cardstock only. The cardstock had to be for a specific page, and I had to use it right away, I could not just stock pile it. I was alos allowed to replace any broken tools (for ex. Crop-o-dile) but it had to be with the same one, not the newest and best model. Thankfully nothing broke.

I was allowed souvenier items from the Olympics (postcards and pins only), but I could not buy scrapbook items.

I was not allowed to buy things and use them for scrapbook (like ornaments, etc). If it was for scrapbooking then it was a no.

The judges were consulted for a few items - like storage containers (which I was allowed) as I was cleaning my room throughout the year.

The bet ran from October 1, 2009 to October 1, 2010.

I DID IT!!

I ran out of bling very early in the year as well as flowers. But I was forced to use all of those other things you accumulate and never get to using. For me it was buttons. They quickly replaced my bling.

I learned that I can make do and that is part of the fun of scrapbooking. Not every page needs bling and/or flowers and I still love all of the pages I did.

Now that it is over, I am going through all of the stuff that I never touched all year and realizing there is still a lot of junk!! I have made two boxes of stuff already that I am donating to the daycare and I am sure there will be a lot more. I am also going to try to sell a few things on Kijiji or Ebay.

So my first day to go shopping, with $50 burning a hole in my pocket, what did I spend???

A whole $8.93 - LOL!! I could not beleive it!! I really looked around and thought "Do I really need this?" and most often the answer was no!!

I did buy a Cricut Cartridge today so my $50 is gone, but again, I thought about it carefully before I bought it.

Thanks for letting me share!!

What an awesome success story! Congrats on winning the challenge!

 

[mom2faith]

I started a blog to show some of my pages. It is really just a place for me to share what I have done.

Here is the address: http://adventuresoffaithsmom.blogspot.com/

I think the MK Opening page shows clearly what I was talking about - I was running low on flowers, so I used the punch. The entire page (aside from the Pin) is all handmade embellishments using punches mostly.

Punches are a huge thing that I "stopped" using. I had all of these punches and never pulled them out. This last weekend (despite the fact that the bet was over) I was determined to really use them.

 

[Jamie77]

I started a blog to show some of my pages. It is really just a place for me to share what I have done.

Here is the address: http://adventuresoffaithsmom.blogspot.com/

I think the MK Opening page shows clearly what I was talking about - I was running low on flowers, so I used the punch. The entire page (aside from the Pin) is all handmade embellishments using punches mostly.

Punches are a huge thing that I "stopped" using. I had all of these punches and never pulled them out. This last weekend (despite the fact that the bet was over) I was determined to really use them.

I just checked out your blog and I'm following it now. I love your scrapbook pages!

 

[beaucoup]

Wow, impressive. Congrats.
I dabbled in scrapbooking maybe 10 years ago. We didn't have all these things that you can buy today. We had to use items from the trip to decorate the page or make the items ourselves. Everything. Paper piecings that Cricuts now do for you. I was much more creative back then. And spent a lot less money.

Its fun to look at those pages now. They certainly don't look like magazine layouts. The trick is to also not let them look like your kids kindergarten art projects.