Inspire Me Monday

Oh dear, I got quoted over on Create With Joy's Inspire me Monday blog (here) so now I feel obligated to be inspiring today.  Those are some big shoes to fill!

How about I just tell you about what is inspiring me.  I have spotted this pledge to Use It Up (UIU) on several different blogs that I read.  The idea is instead of constantly running out and buying new crafting supplies you should use what you have.  Apparently, I'm not the only crafter who is over-flowing with STUFF.  UIU has several suggestions such as shopping your own stash, trading with others, or rethinking your project to fit what you have.  Those are all good suggestions.

I often say that I feel I was more creative when I had less stuff.  I really used to make do with what I had.  Now a whole project can grind to a halt or I can waste a whole afternoon searching through everything for just the right thing.  That said, I also like having lots of stuff to pick and chose from, but sometimes it is intimidating and it is too much.  Unlike many crafters I know I do downsize from time to time.  I'm often bringing patterned papers to share or stamps to sell to my friends and stamp club members.  I often hear, "I could never part with anything."  Well, the Use it Up campaign doesn't say you have to give it up, it just says don't get more.  That's a start.

I started some new crafting goals recently (baby steps if you will) and they were to use more stickers since I have a ton of them and to use up my bag of adhesive.   Why don't you make a little crafting goal too?  Start small and with something that can be achieved.  Open up that unused package of embellishments you have sitting around and slap them on a card, layout, or project today!.

The birthday cards on today's post both fit the Use It Up bill.  The first one has a stamp set that I bought on clearence and never used.  All the red paper that was used to paper piece the greeting were scraps I had lying around, and of course the flowers were from my extensive stash of flowers.  The second one is from a DeNami card kit.  I love card kits but I don't necessarily finish them off or use them all up.  This was from a partially used kit.

The Fine Print: First Card stamps by Stampendous, paper by various but mostly DCWV, flowers by Prima, and brad by Recollections. Second card everything by DeNami except for Marvy inks and Copic markers.