I think I may be a pack rat....

 ...but if I am- I learned it from my Mom.

A recent project I made can demonstrate what I am talking about.

I have been working on making envelopes and cards lately and while going through my stash of calendars I came across one that I brought home from Mom and Dad's sometime last year. The year of the Calendar? 1975. Before I was ever born. It had been sitting in Mom's trunk for a good many years along with other paper mementos.

 I decided to use it to make a set of envelopes and cards. While using them I had fun looking at all the things written on it (mostly names of people on their Birthdays) and thinking about how Mom and Dad used this when there was just one little boy, my brother Peter, before we other 5 ever arrived. The calendar came from a sporting goods store in Iowa where my Dad had worked. If I remember right during the year 1975 my parents lived in Florida, Jamaica and Iowa and then after that year the calendar would have moved with them to Nebraska (where I was born) and then up to MN. That calendar has done some traveling. :-)

   When making the cards I wanted to add a little more to some of them so in my stash of paper stuff to use for cards I pulled out a booklet with a bunch of animal pictures in it that fit with the cards I was making. I was adding them to the cards when I happened to think about where that came from - it was from my gun training course that I took around 20 years ago. I guess I am pretty "guilty" of hanging on to things too! Since that time I have lived at 2 places in Iowa, in Kansas and 2 places here in MN. I don't know for sure that I took it to all those places as it may have been in stuff of mine still at my parents but it may have done some traveling too.

 Anyway... I do think we may kind of qualify for the title of pack rats. It isn't that our homes are piled high everywhere with stuff - they aren't, our homes are very livable and we also both have company regularly but we do like to keep things on hand that might be useful later. The stuff does often come in handy too. If any group I am with needs to do a craft project, do some decorating, make some costumes or something like that then I am often the one that comes up with the needed supplies and my Mom is the same way.

  I do think there is value in saving things but I am also coming to realize that stuff can cause stress as well so this year I have been working hard to go through the things I have stashed away and use up a lot of it. My stashes had grown too large and it was time to do some purging. That is why I had "Denim Days" and now I have been focusing on Paper projects and why we have been making all sorts of fun rag rugs.

  They only drawback though to going through everything is that I may not have the fun of creating while thinking about the memories associated with something 20 years ago or even from before I was born. :-)


  Do you have stashes of stuff at your place? Are you a "pack rat" or somebody that cleans things out quickly?