Letting Go in 2012

Without actually doing the math, I realize that I have spent way too much money, time, and energy on scrapbooking supplies, classes, and software. I am coming to realize that I am spending more time organizing and searching through my stash than actually using it. This has become abundantly clear to me since the passing of National Digital Scrapbooking Day and Black Friday sales that enticed me to spend and download WAY TOO MUCH STUFF that I haven't sorted out or hardly looked at since. I have a calendar project I want to do for Christmas and all I want to do is purge all my scrapbooking supplies. Once again spending time playing with the things, not using them.

I have been thinking a lot about how the blogs I read and the podcasts I listen to are enticing me to buy things and not inspiring me to scrapbook. I think that I want to spend more time and money on buying classes that help me take better pictures and scrapbook in more meaningful ways. I want to spend my money on inspiration and I have realized that inspiration is not in the form of products, but what you do with the products you have. I love looking through my supplies. I love buying supplies, but I want to use them up. Watching them turn old and dated is only ridden with guilt and buyers remorse.

Reflecting on some good things that have happened in 2011 I see that I have made a giant leap in my photo flow with Kayla Lamoureaux's Lightroom class and Finding Photo Flow. I have developed a system that I am working again that feels manageable and fun, not work so much. The digital scrapbooking supplies in Lightroom has bogged me down. I subscribe to two monthly digital kit programs and I have to stop. I am spending time converting and downloading and blah, blah, blah. Not playing with my stuff, but organizing, tagging, converting. I am going to stop that.

So for 2012 this is what I am going to do:

Cancel monthly subscriptions:

• Masterful Scrapbook Design (Cancelled 11/27/2011. I have several months worth of old content to keep me busy for all of 2012.)
• The Daily Digi (How can I support the show in a different way? Take their classes. Use the affiliate link. Email Katie about this. $82.50 per year)
• Little Dreamer Designs (I have this paid until 4/11/12. I am going to try to use these supplies and assess in April whether or not I renew. $50 per year.)
• Paperclipping??? (I have not been watching the videos. I don't participate online, but I do find Noell to be very inspiring and she has a similar philosophy about scrapping without a bunch of stuff. Only $28 a year, so I'll keep it.)

Unsubscribe to emails that are only for promoting product. Subscribe only to emails that promote inspiration, reflection, story telling. Report back here what I have unsubscribed from.

Unfollow blogs that are only for promoting product. Follow only blogs that inspire me to write, to take pictures, to document my life, to reflect, to be creative.

Revisit old class content at:

• Bigpictureclasses.com
• getitscrapped.com
• willowing.ning.com
• Jessicasprague.com

Archive kits I don't want.

• Scrappers Guide
• Stuff to Scrap
• Delete all alphas?

Stop buying Scrapbooks, etc. and Creating Keepsakes Magazine. They make me want to consume. They do their job. All these things are just vehicles for consumerism. I have to stop spending and start doing.

Finally, can I commit to round ups? (Katie's class at Big Picture.)