Chatty Sunday: January Stash Kit review

Here we are at the end of January, and you're probably wondering what happened to the January stash kit. Tthe answer is... well, nothing fun.

For some reason, the kit for January just didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I actually loved all the components of the kit - I had a ton of random ideas for the stamps, the paper and the embellishments. I stamped out a whole bunch of cute images that I colored. I even put together a couple of extra cards! But the process, as a whole, left me very underwhelmed. I don't feel like I gave the supplies a good workout, and I really didn't feel that I should be setting the supplies down in the "used" pile.

And I'm kind of glad, actually. Not all supplies will inspire me in the same ways, and I think that's the whole point of doing this project - to figure out how my supplies are best used and to make something productive with them. The fact that a month was underwhelming is good. I went from very structured sets last year (thematic sets) to something completely random in January, and it was a bit like a swinging pendulum - neither extreme worked for me. I don't want completely structured, but I also don't want completely random, either.

With this in mind, I figured out a couple of changes I need to make to the kit process:

The first change is to make the kits a bit smaller. January's kit had 7 stamps - and that's just too much for a single kit. I've decided to go back to a 4-stamp model, with it being broken down to: one smaller set (ex. 3x3 or 4x4 set), one standard set (4x6), one larger set (4x7.5 or larger) and one sentiment set (any size). This gives me a great variety of stamps to use, but without feeling like the amount of material I need to use is overwhelming.

The second change will be to take out any rubber stamps. Although I do plan to use my rubber stamps, I think they're better-suited to single cards. Almost all of my rubber stamps are character stamps, and the majority are a bit complicated - so they take a lot longer to color. I think it will work better to use them as I'm inspired to, instead of forcing them into a kit.

And the last change will be to get rid of the monthly time element. Instead of a monthly kit, they'll just be kits - and I'll continue working on them for as long as it takes me to make 12 cards. I'm still hoping to hit that 1-kit-per-month mark, but I am also looking forward to feeling less pressure to try and cram making 8 cards in one evening. Deadlines can be a great motivator, but too rigid of a schedule starts making the process feel like a job or a chore, and I don't want that.

In the next week, I'll be sharing my next kit. The focus will be on birthday and masculine/boy cards, as I'm going to be working on some gift sets for Christmas.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~