Friday 1 January 2016

Conquering Paper Mountain - My Project for 2016


Happy New Year and welcome to Paper Mountain.

Paper Mountain is a pile of all my 8 x 8 and 6 x 6 patterned paper pads ( not including any A4 or 12 x 12 - those are another story!)  and the mountain reaches:

13 inches (33 cm) high!

In my defence, I will say that the majority of these pads were actually free gifts with magazines. Many are untouched, complete pads, others are partly used. 

My project for 2016 is to reduce this pile as much as possible. To do this I will either:

Discard - there are actually some patterns in there that I do not like and will never use. Why am I hanging onto them? I will either pass them on or recycle them. 

Use - here is the challenge! I already use patterned paper on cards but for most it doesn't use much. I expect to make mini- books etc and any ideas are welcome. 

Although the main aim is to reduce the pile as much as possible, I feel I need some goal to aim for. Working on the basis of using one pad a month, I took away the top 12 pads and measured again. The mountain now measured 10.5 inches (27cm) . So that is the maximum my mountain should measure at the end of the year. Wish me luck!

(If you'd like to see my annual projects for previous years:
2015 - Empty Box Project here  and here  where I emptied a box of unused stamps.
2014- Festive 48 here and here   where I made a Christmas card every week.) 


9 comments:

chrissie said...

Good Luck with this new project Marina. Papers are not something I have many of as I usually make one in Paint Shop Pro if I need one. I love seeing how you do these challenges.

Have a very Happy 2016

Love Chrissie xx

sandie said...

Happy New Year Marina. I love you set yourself a crafty challenge each year. I have an idea for you...you could ask on the craft retreat Facebook page if anyone is interested in having some DSP as some of those going may want a pad?

Ros Crawford said...

Good luck on your project!! I have a tin of papers too! 2 tips I can offer ...1. The paper is usually better quality than copy paper so use up ones you don't like by using the reverse (white side) to print digitals etc., 2. Get out some stencils and paste and go over the papers to transform them...
Happy New Year!

Craftychris said...

Happy New Year! Good luck reducing your stash! Altering papers you don't like with gesso, paint, ink, sprays etc would be a good plan too. xxx

Lindart said...

great project - I have a drawer full of 12x12 pads. Isn't it amazing that we will look at a paper and know we will never use it, but still keep it? To me it's "well. . .you never know. . ."!! I have a lot of "you never know's" in my craft room! Have a wonderful 2016, and may your mountain slowly melt away!

Lindart said...

great project - I have a drawer full of 12x12 pads. Isn't it amazing that we will look at a paper and know we will never use it, but still keep it? To me it's "well. . .you never know. . ."!! I have a lot of "you never know's" in my craft room! Have a wonderful 2016, and may your mountain slowly melt away!

Stella said...

Marina such a fab project. If you don't use these papers on your projects you can use them for making envelopes . Or put them as a craft sheet on your desk:)
Happy New Year!

Pia S said...

Did I mention I'm a DP addict? I couldn't do this in one year only. I think my papers equal your pile times ten or something....

Shauna said...

A new personal challenge! I look forward to all the designer paper projects this year! Good luck!
- Shauna