Hello my fellow crafters. I'm sure many of you, like me, love to acquire paper crafting products. I have heard, and agree with other scrappers that purchasing product is just as much a hobby. In our desire for more product, we may favour one type over another. As an example, I have a friend who loves stamping and therefore she has a huge collection of stamps. As for myself, I love pattern paper, particularly 12" followed closely by 6".
Like many fellow crafters, I have put myself on the odd craft spending freeze. There are weeks, even months that I do really well before "falling off the wagon". In nearly all instances there will be some 12" pattern paper.
One way to encourage myself to use up my product, with emphasis on my 12" pattern papers, I have put together my own scrapbooking kits. For more information on that, see my blog post title Scrapbooking - How to create your own scrapbook kit.
Working with my own kits has been great and it is something I really enjoy doing. However, I was looking for a different approach, just to shake things up, and one I thought that would be just as effective in helping me, even inspire me to use up my product. This led me to come up with this series. I had a number of title ideas, for example "Scrapbooking through the manufacturers A to Z" or "Scrapping A to Z". However, I couldn't decide if they are manufacturers or companies. For example, American Crafts owns so many brands such as Heidi Swapp and Bella Boulevard and Pink Paislee, who I categorise in their own right, so it just became too confusing for me. I also didn't want a title that may be misleading, especially to someone new. As such, I decided the title for this series is "Scrapping through my 12" pattern papers A to Z".
To clarify, I am someone who sorts my 12" papers, and in fact the majority of my craft products, by their brand e.g., American Crafts, Simple Stories, Graphic 45 etc.
My plan is to start with my 12" papers under the letter A i.e. American Crafts, Authentique etc.
Now, American Crafts has generic paper collections and a number of designers e.g., Amy Tan, Elizabeth Kartchner and Shimelle Laine. Where a collection and/or designer has embellishments and other coordinating product they will be paired up with their 12" pattern paper. Where there is not embellishments and other coordinating product, I will pull from my stash those brand products that I do not have any 12" pattern papers for e.g. flairs, sequins, wood veneer, kit club cut-a-parts, recollections etc.
This approach will allow me enough flexibility to be creative, but will also help me to work through my huge stash of 12" pattern papers.
Here is a photo showing how I store my 12" pattern papers and cardstock.
So, the 'brands' in my A to Z 12" pattern paper line up are:
- American Crafts
- Generic
- Amy Tangerine
- Dear Lizzy
- Shimelle
- Authentique
- Basic Grey
- Bazzill
- Bella Boulevard
- Bo Bunny
- Carta Bella
- Chickaniddy
- Close to my Heart (CTMH)
- Crate Paper
- Generic
- Maggie Holmes
- Creative Memories (CM)
- Daisy D's
- Die Cuts With A View (DCWV)
- DoCrafts
- Echo Park
- Elle's Studio
- Fancy Pants
- Francheville
- Glitz Design
- Gossamer Blue
- Grace Taylor
- Graphic 45 (G45)
- Hazel and Ruby
- Heidi Swapp
- Jillibean Soup
- K&Company
- Kaisercraft
- Kaszazz
- Making Memories
- Miscellaneous
- There are many one-off pieces that I have stored under the general brand of 'miscellaneous'. In other words, not enough or not important enough on my scale to rate having a row with their own brand name.
- My Mind's Eye (MME)
- October Afternoon
- I currently have no OA and am debating on whether I continue to keep a row for this brand.
- Pebbles
- Pink Paislee
- Prima
- Ruby Rock-it
- Rusty Pickle
- Sassafras
- S.E.I
- Simple Stories
- Stampin' Up!
- Studio Calico
- Teresa Collins
- Tim Holtz
- The Girls Paperie
- We R Memory Keepers
- Webster's Pagers
As I finish with a brand, I will share my layouts. Until then, happy scrapping.
Cheers FiLoMa
