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What does everyone do with their old SU catty's & other craft catalogs & mags? Do I really need to keep them? Especially the ones that I've got digital copies of on my pc??
Thank you in advance b/c I ALWAYS make things harder than they need to be.
Well, if you've got the digital copies, by all means recycle them. I keep mine, because I don't trust my digital anything to stay put or still be in one piece after being moved around from one drive to another.
I don't keep mine; they take up too much room. When I've had each issue around for 6 months or so, I cut it up! I cut out the card illustrations with neat color combinations & the card Ideas I thought I might use sometime (from SU cattys especially), and just keep those pieces in an "inspiration box" --- an old shoe box. When I need an idea, or some unusual color combinations, I go to that box. I've done this for years, and never been sorry I don't have all those catalogs around!
I WISH I'd kept mine...up to a point. I was purging last year and threw out two good cattys!! Now I only have 2011-2012, 2012-2013 and the newest 2013-2014. :(
Maybe this will be a project for the winter. Cutting out pictures of cards I like and then getting rid of the catalogs. But I only have back as far as 2005 so I don't have a bunch of them. The one nice thing about having them is if someone wants to know the name of a stamp set, I can go through them and maybe help them out. But with my limited space, I think I will be going through them and purging this winter. One catalog at a time. As for magazines, I pass some on, but I have kept all my CardMaker magazines because they are my favorite!
I used to cut out ideas that I liked and put them in a binder, thinking that I would use it as a resource. I've found that I almost never use said binder, as I spend whatever time I have available for "browsing" here on SCS or a couple of blogs. The only thing I pull out now are stamp sets that have retired that I may want to watch for on ebay or the B/S/T forum here, just to remind me. If there's an idea that I'm jazzed enough about that I think I'll use it SOON, I cut it out and leave it out in the open - again, to remind me... Other than that, I send them out into the flow. Ditto for magazines. I've kept a few "special issues" - but I plan to go through those soon, as well, to see if they're still worth hanging onto...
My mom uses hers for ideas for the retired stamp sets. I guess I don't think they take up too much space compared to some other things I have. I do still have all of mine, but I honestly never look at them. The galleries here are the best resource!
I keep them and browse through them occasionally, and I confess I have taken one to Staples and had a couple of photocopies made on cardstock (of a retired set I don't own), went home coloured them up and used on cards. Worked great!
I cannot remember set names for the life of me and my sets are split, so I have every catalog back to 1988 ish ( even the mini's) and as I use older sets I look them up in the book and write the set names on the blocks.
so, I guess it depends on what you do with them as to if you "need" them.
I had been keeping mine for the last 10 years. But they took up too much space on the shelf; plus I found that with retiring colors and styles changing, the older cattys weren't good as much of a "resource".
Trends in card making change, type of stamp sets that are popular, new embellishments or techniques all make hanging onto old cattys not worth it for me. Things I thought were "so cute" from 4 or 5 years ago now look dated and stale. Like many others I get inspiration from the gallery here or a few other crafty blogs I frequent.
When SU went to two catalogs a year, that was just way too much for me. I ended up clearing out most of my cattys long time ago.
Who needs a full bookcase of cattys when we have SCS for inspriation!!!
I have only 6 current cattys, I think that is just enough to get me through and not to take up to much space.
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I say recycle them or give them away. Even though I have the space, I seldom look at old Issues of anything so it's still not worth holding on to (for me). I used to cut out ideas I liked in magazines but found I very rarely looked at them. There's so much inspiration on the internet...more than I could ever need or use.
...yeah, that is a good question for me too. We are moving in to a new house in a few months and I will have a dedicated craft room. With storage. Not fancy like the studios I see in magazines, but I am excited to have something at last.
I have hung on to all my SU catalogues Just Because. Just because the week I purge them, I wil find I need them! That is Murphy's Law, and unfortunately Murphy and I have a close relationship. So I am hesitant to get rid of them.
... I have hung on to all my SU catalogues Just Because. Just because the week I purge them, I wil find I need them! That is Murphy's Law, and unfortunately Murphy and I have a close relationship. So I am hesitant to get rid of them.
Apparently Murphy is my brother. And all these years I thought I was an only child. LOL.
Murphy is the reason (well, one of them) that I'm a borderline hoarder. I do try to keep that line fairly broad, though I'm sure some people think I'm already only 1 stamp from the border.
Dea
I used to keep every magazine I ever got for card making. I also had 4 years or so of the Stampin up magazines (stampin success) that demos get. Over the summer I went through some of my magazines and sold them at a garage sale.
I just recently went through my Stampin Success mags and only kept the ideas I really liked.
Even if you just got rid of the advertising pages of a magazine, you can save a lot of space.
I find the same issues that Cobby brought up. I had went through the SS mags and marked my favorite pages with post its last year. Now as I was going through and ripping them apart, some of those marked pages ended up in the recycle bin.
My styles and tastes have changed in the last 10 years I have been doing this and with the internet, I can get so many great ideas that are completely current.
I still have all my old SU catties, but I am going to move them upstairs. If by next year I never go grab them, I will tear those up and recycle the rest.
I have so much more room with all of that stuff gone! It is good to purge once in a while.
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I have kept about 7 years of big the catty and a few mini's. I love going down memory lane and revisiting the old sets. It brings back sweet memories of different stamping groups and friends! Some long gone and moved on.
I have never used the catty's for inspiration, but I do like looking through them about once a year. I get my inspiration here or Pinterest.
I have only bought one or two magazines over the years and tossed them.
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Last edited by Allistamps123; 10-15-2013 at 10:57 AM..
The only way I've ever gotten a SU catalog is free from someone I've bought retired stamps from, mostly off craigslist. I know how pricey they are so I really appreciate the ones I have. I love them for inspiration ideas, there's about 8 or so I flip through every so often.
I'd recommend offering them to a new stamper or card maker, I bet it'd make their day!
The only way I've ever gotten a SU catalog is free from someone I've bought retired stamps from, mostly off craigslist. I know how pricey they are so I really appreciate the ones I have. I love them for inspiration ideas, there's about 8 or so I flip through every so often.
I'd recommend offering them to a new stamper or card maker, I bet it'd make their day!
Do you have a demo now? Our catalogs are half the price they used to be so I readily give current catalogs away (it was a bit more painful before). Sometimes demos require a minimum purchase to recoup their costs too, but even then, it'd be a $25 or $30 order. The cost changed a year ago, so you might ask your demo if you can get one for free if you plan on placing an order. I LOVE the ideas in them!!! The SU! Concept Artists are so amazingly creative it just blows me away!
I rip out the pages I like of any catalog/magazine and put the pages into a binder inside page protectors. Then recycle the rest. I don't feel like I HAVE to keep the whole things. It would just take up way too much space.
I'm thinking I'm going to get rid of mine. When I look back at older issues, a lot of the cards look dated to me, even though I am still using lots of those old sets with newer colors and newer techniques! There are so many online sources, the books are taking up space I can otherwise use.
I had kept mine for ages....but this past spring I threw a TON of them away. I haven't missed them at all. I've not had any weird twinges of guilt, no instances of reaching for them only to find empty space in their place. No symptoms of regret whatsoever. Pitch 'em....there's way too many free sources of inspiration--use those options and ditch the old catalogs.
Not SU cattys, but I used to keep all the cardmaking mags that I bought. Then, when they were taking up too much room, I went through them, and took out the cards that I liked. Put them in page protectors in ring binders. When I moved rooms last year, I realised I never took them down and went through them, and when I did this time, I felt, like others are saying, the styles etc were very dated. Now I have Pinterest, lol! No storage problem, no collecting dust either
Old SU Cattys-Keep?
I do think that even if I weren't a demo, that I'd still do this! 
