It's been a little while since I added to my "dirty laundry" album (a scandelous book of family not-so-secrets, lol). This one is on our pack-rat tendencies. For the record, I wrote this journaling about a month ago (just now getting around to putting the layout together), and after I wrote the journaling I felt so bad I did purge quite a bit of junk around the house (including all the empty bottles of foundation).

I layered photos of family "stuff" taken throughout the years underneath the vellum overlay of journaling, and used lots of heritage accents.

Going by this statement in the challenge description "Show us the nuts in your family tree.", I figure this works for the theme challenge (All in the Family).

Supplies:
patterned paper - Paper Reflections (8X8 variety pack found at Target)
vellum - The Paper Co
brads - Karen Foster (Zig Zag - Antique, Macaroni - Antique, Mini Screw Brads)
stickers - Karen Foster (Old Ticket Stubs), Rebecca Sower by EK Success (Nostalgiques Postal Pieces), Two Busy Moms (Chronicles), Marcella by Kay (Embossed Stickers - measuring tape)
rubons - Royal & Langnickel (Ladies Accesories), 7Gypsies (Rubbings Elements Fragments)
font - LD Kooky

"Save Everything. You Might Need It Someday."
Journaling:
We are hoarders to the nth degree. There are only two names that come to mind as an exception to this rule – that is Dad and Nicole. Other than that – we all save EVERYTHING! Mom makes a show of getting rid of stuff, but that’s only because she runs out of room. Grandma was a closet hoarder (get it – closet hoarder – ok, well I think I’m funny). Seriously, I was surprised after she passed on how effected she was. And Uncle Donald has become a hoarder in his old age. Both sides of the family are susceptible to this condition – my first memory of noticing it is associated with Nancy, and to this day she continues to house various collectibles, articles of furniture, works of art, and more in all of her properties across 3 states and 2 countries.

Nancy has always had a full house – and I’m not talking about having lots of children or taking in elderly relatives. I’m convinced that Nancy has a little something of every collection known to man. It’s so interesting to walk through her house and view the eclectic mix of ceramic and glass, wicker and wood, old and new, ethnic and American. She is much closer to her Polish roots than we are, she’s always had more contact with the generation that came over from the old country, and her style reflects that influence with unusual color combinations. Her trips from her condo in Chicago to her townhouse in West Palm Beach usually involve at least one car which Potsy drives, in order to transport items that she feels are “must haves” in her rental property. When she adds furniture to the house, she rarely removes any, rather she rearranges to make things fit.

Grandma Cumpton collected dogs – upon her passing we realized she had more than 1000 collectible dogs. She also collected ceramic birds (many of these she made herself), ashtrays (lifted from various restaurants across the country as souvenirs), coffee mugs, and dolls. After her passing we learned she also hoarded the necessities – namely food and clothing. My explanation for this was her having lived through the Great Depression. I wonder if they’ve ever done a study on the likelihood of increased hoarding due to the effects of the GD era? Mom went through her closets and found she had a number of blouses, pants and sweaters that had never been worn – in fact they still had tags on. She went through the pantry, deep freezers (there were two of them) and refrigerator and found enough food to feed a small army for a year.

Uncle Donald lived for many years in a small house in town. It was barely big enough for his family, but he lived simply and didn’t have a lot of clutter so it wasn’t a problem for him. When he neared retirement he built himself a big hangar-style home on his farm. This marked a distinctive change in his style of living. This home has one large living area (probably 75X40), 2 bedrooms (about 15X12 each), and a huge shed, all under one roof. The shed has to be about 200X100. When you enter the shed, it is as though you’ve entered a museum. Uncle Donald has the coolest stuff! From a machete that his grandfather handmade and actually used when Uncle D was a child to a huge empty aquarium to many vintage street signs and business signs, it is a bonanza of American History. Once finished ogling this outdoor eye candy, it is time to step into the house, another museum of sorts. Uncle D has collected everything from remote control cars to Furbys. He has vintage artwork and historical photographs. He owns a mandolin, a ukulele and a guitar. Most of these items were auction finds, and he regularly peruses auction houses looking for more goldmines.

I’ve been bitten by the hoarder bug and bitten hard. It’s always been hard for me to part with anything, and scrapbooking has made that even harder. I’ve tried many different foundations over the past few years looking for the perfect coverage and shade. 8 to be exact. How do I know that? Because I still have all the empty bottles. Why? Well, what if I want to try one of them again? Or what if I get confused and try the same one again? Or what if one day they are worth money? (By the way, that last excuse is golden in a hoarder’s repertoire, that’s how we justify most of our junk, umm I mean items.) I have hundreds of books, which I justify by periodically rereading my favorites among them. I have old copies of magazines (just in case I want to ever reference back to an article). I keep tags from clothing, pieces of wrapping paper that I may be able to use on teeny-tiny gifts in the future, more paperclips than I will ever know what to do with, broken electronics, torn and well-worn stuffed animals, unmatched socks and user manuals to all manner of items that I no longer have and have no recollection of ever having. Occasionally I’m forced to get rid of some of my old stuff to make room for new stuff, and it literally causes me pain. I have a 5X10 storage unit and it is filling up. I have to find a remedy for this madness, mostly because John is going nuts with all my stuff. On the plus side, the other day we needed to improvise in a home repair and I had everything we needed to do so. I was able to do my ITYS dance (I told you so). Eureka!

There is too much of a good thing of course – I think I’m living proof of that. But it goes both ways. My Dad is extreme in the opposite direction, and to me that’s a problem as well. Every time he turns around he has to buy something that he just threw away a month or two ago. In his madness he’s even thrown away his address book (by mistake, but that’s what happens when you’re always throwing stuff away). There is a statue in my storage unit that says “Number One Dad” on it. He had two of them and he only wanted to keep one. So he gave the other one to me, since I had given it to him in the first place (when I was 7). Seriously, that is the extreme. Nicole is the same way, always getting rid of stuff that she needs (or likes, which to me is the same thing). When she moved out of Mom’s house and in with Dana after they were married, she purged a lot. I almost had a nervous breakdown just thinking about it. I wish I could be more orderly and less cluttered, but I never want my house to look sterile like what you see in magazines. I’ll just keep up my quest towards balance until I’m old enough to be considered eccentric. Then my mess of collections will be accepted as quirky rather than frowned on as irresponsible.