Friday, January 30, 2015

Trash or treasure?

On today's episode of "hoarders"...

Oh, wait this isn't TV... just me in my stamp room.

Those of you who know me already aware of my problem! Nancy S. - remember the imported (from PA) tuna cans? (I had intentions of turning them into way cute stamped convention gifties for my downline.)

If you follow me on Pinterest you'll see that I have about 16,000 pins. It's embarrassing! Pinterest is electronic hoarding! But the reason why I like it so much? NONE OF THE CLUTTER!

So, today I was down on my stamp room... The goal? Retrieving two drawer bins so I could use them to organize the bathroom closet. They've been in here a long time - I had forgotten why they were even here in the first place.
Then I opened them and I immediately knew! And the words "holy sh**" came out of my mouth...

See the label there that says "cards to be finished"?

Yeah, maybe that was wishful thinking!

I found stuff in there from when I first started Stampin' Up! back in 1997. NO KIDDING!

I think my plan was to finish these cards - when I looked at them they were obviously done at workshops - like I started them, demo-ing a certain technique and moved on to the other station. I threw them in this box when I got home so I would finish the card at a later date. Okay, so 17 years is a later date, right?

There are also multiples of certain card elements. I'm thinking that maybe I was working on a card swap for an event (where you make multiples of one design to exchange with others) and I had extras...

Embarrassing as this whole situation is, you gotta love some of these past images:  

Whoops! That would be my finger... 
...door hanger that was decorated using a wheel and an Easter set. It would later be folded and then enclosed around a small cello bag filled with jellybeans! No doubt I was planning on giving these to my boys, since there are two in the picture... "The best laid plans..." LOL

Showing two techniques: polished stone, and spotlighting (there is a little square of vellum on that right-hand card, where the girls' hair is colored in- you can hardly see it).

Hey! Remember that scratch paper where I showed you to emboss on the white, and then you took a little stick and scratched the white away, revealing a multi-colored surface? 

Neither do I, it was so popular!

The cut-out butterfly was done with Pearl- ex paints. Remember those?

And, how about that cute lattice-edge card showing that you can color behind our printed vellum paper?

Hey, look who it is!

BUTTON BEAR!
OMG!!! He came with my (then)$300 starter kit! (!!!!$300!!! And you couldn't customize your kit like you can now - for $99!)

Clearly, I was showing the masking technique here. See how he is sitting behind the present? "If you want it in FRONT, stamp it FIRST!" (Did you ever hear me say that?)

Oh geez...

The best part about today's find? 

A bag full of stamped images from my friend Carol.

Carol was my neighbor back in the day, in our first house after getting married, and a very dear friend. She's the one who first got me into stamping (and everything else crafty!)

Carol passed away two years ago, so this treasure trove was a happy find for me! It reminded me of the good ol' days when we could look out our side windows into each other's living room... If the lights were still on (even if it was past midnight) you could go over and borrow what you needed - a paper cutter, a stamp, whatever!)

We were getting ready to move from that house and back to our home of Pittsburgh... Carol and I hurriedly stamped images that each other owned, knowing that we wouldn't be able to run over each other's house at midnight to borrow a certain stamp.... Then we would have them and could color them to make cards! 

Good Lord! Look at some of these!

Well that was 1998

They have been in this box all that time and have moved from house to house to house... From York, PA to Pittsburgh, back to York, and then to Connecticut.

I can't get rid of them now! Too sentimental.
Like I admitted - I am a hoarder!

If you ever get a card from me that features an old stamped image, you'll know why. 
Feel honored! 
It's "vintage"! (Right, Nancy M.?) hahaha

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