Some days, when you’re wandering through the scrapbook aisles in your local Joann’s, you find something you have to have, even though you don’t know exactly how you’re going to use it. For me, that’s usually paper.

This paper was one of the things that reached out and jumped into my basket. I was powerless against it. As a family with a huge stash of Lego blocks, how could I not bring it home?

When you start your page based on the paper, building up from it is fairly easy. You can choose photos and story based on the colors and theme of your paper, as well as the embellishments.

What made me really happy about this page? Finally using up some of these Boy Oh Boy die cuts, that I got a long time ago while visiting my brother in California. I had bought them to go with a certain paper I knew I had back home, but when I got home, the two blues clashed so much I couldn’t use them together. Ah, the trials and tribulations of a scrapbooker.

One other thing of note before we move on for the day.

Be creative with your letter stickers. This title consists of one L, two Vs, an 8, a T and D, an X, an O, 2 Fs, 2 Ws, and an I. Some days you just have to make what you have work. Today was one of those days.

Do you have any paper that just jumped into your stash without you noticing? What are you going to make with it?

I have been creating paper crafts for just about 20 years now. Well, I did do a little stamping before that, but I didn’t really start obsessing over paper crafts till 1997 or 1998. Probably more like 1998, so only 17 years, but still! That’s a long time to be collecting paper crafting supplies.

You want to hear something crazy?

I have never de-stashed. Never. The closest I got to de-stashing was giving away a bin full of scraps last year, and throwing away markers that have given up the ghost. That’s it.

You’d think I’d feel overwhelmed by all the choices and sheer amount of stuff around. But I’m not. All the random stuff is inspirational. Re-discovering old things, and using them up has become a fun challenge, especially since I’ve put myself on a very severely limited craft budget this year.

You know what, let’s spend the next couple weeks digging through my stash, and coming up with fun things to do with it.

There’s tons of wordfetti and vellum quotes and rub-on words that are begging to be used on a page.

And so many alphas that have barely been used, or partially used, and missing key letters. There’s got to be something I can do with these, right?

And how about the giant drawer full of ribbons and fibers? Surely these deserve to see the light of day again.

So many themed stickers! I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t buy these any more, unless I have a specific project I’m going to use them on immediately. But there are still tons of useful things in here. I did use some spring stickers in my PL album recently, but still! There are a lot more to use up!

And paper. So much paper. I love it. I still want more. But it’s time to use some of it up, don’t you think?

So do you think I can use these things, and still have pages that look current, or even better, timeless? Let’s see what we come up with!

And you, yes you fellow stash hoarder. Why don’t you play along, and find some ancient things in your stash to use on your pages! Come on, you know it will be fun!