Me and My Stamps!

I can remember when I first engaged in this scrapbooking hobby, I was very worried about the expense. At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom and watched all our pennies very carefully. I remember making myself the promise that I would never cross over to "the dark side," into rubber stamping. Because I KNEW that if I did, I would become addicted and the temptation to spend our hard-earned dollars would be even greater.

I got involved in attending monthly workshops provided by Tammi Mixon, who is a consultant for Close to My Heart. I told her the same thing, "Oh, I don't intend to get into stamping..." She just wisely nodded and said, "I understand."

Well, here I am, about 10 years into this, and my stamp collection is, in my estimation, enormous (although, I *have* seen bigger...much bigger)! Each of my stamp sets was bought with a specific project in mind. Well, except for the $1 stamp sets. Let's face it, those I bought because...well...they were $1!

And since many of those well-intended projects have never seen the light of day, and since most of my stamp sets have never even been inked, I've decided to do a little challenge with myself. For the next - however many days/weeks/months it takes - I am going to use at least one stamp from each of my stamp sets. Yes, even the football one. And the Disney one.

My goal is to create 5 new projects per week: tags, cards, altered items, and/or scrapbook pages, take a picture of each one, and post it to the blog. Who knows? Perhaps I'll even include a few tutorials along the way!

So, what's in your stash that you'd love to see getting used? Perhaps it's patterned paper, or better yet, patterned paper SCRAPS. Maybe you're in the same boat as me, and you've got tons of stamps just begging to be inked. Whatever it is, feel free to join me in the challenge to use what you've got, be creative, and get some projects done!