Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

My friend Edna has collected rubber stamps for over 35 years. I didn’t even know they were out there back then. Except for the kind businesses used to stamp ‘confidential, over due’ and so forth.

Needless to say she had thousands of them—literally. She was very generous in sharing with others. When my daughter turned 16 we had a party and Edna brought her stamps and fabric paint for the teens to stamp on quilt blocks. They had so much fun.

She used them for invitations, announcements, birthdays, making cards of all kinds, you name it she used them. She took classes and shared what she learned with others. She enjoyed her hobby but was frustrated because many times the stamps were in bags that she had taken somewhere or in drawers and she couldn’t find them to use.

She asked me to ‘put on my professional home and organizer hat’ and come and help her. It was fun going to her basement and rounding up hundreds of stamps. We came up with a system so she could find her stamps and not feel out of control because of the sheer volume.

1. She went through drawer after drawer of stamps, box after box and bag after bag and then donated bags and bags of stamps she could part with. At first it was four bags that she gave to an arts group in Nevada that used them in a community arts school.
2. Then with the ones she was keeping she placed into categories.
3. Next she stamped the stamps onto a piece of paper with the corresponding drawer number so she could find them and use them.
4. While doing this she realized she could part with even more stamps so she donated two bags to Primary Children’s Medical Center. They also loved them for their sick children to use in their art room.

She has now donated 12 very full plastic grocery bags to others. And she still has plenty of stamps for her needs and wants. Edna expressed the fact that she is grateful she had the desire and the means to collect over the years but realizes it is time to let go and by doing so she is blessing the lives of many others. She feels so good about the space she has created in her own home.

All of us have collections of some kind. And that is all good. Take care of them, categorize them if necessary, keep them contained and in good condition. If the time comes to part with your collection; be inspired by Edna’s giving attitude. Just because we collected something at sometime doesn’t mean we have to hang on to it forever, it is O.K. to let go.