Today, I’m sharing a tip to help you avoid duplicate Stampin’ Up product by keeping track of what you have in a quick and simple way. This will also help you when you go to a party or class and you are wondering what you have at home already! We have all been there where we really love something and accidentally buy it twice. I have been tracking my stuff this way for a few years now and it seems to work really well for me!

I simply mark the item in the catalog with a big X when I buy it! Now I understand this might not work for everyone or it might give you heart palpitations to mark up your catalog. You could always go smaller with a little X over the name or writing “have” next to it.

This works for me because:

~I always have my catalog with me so then I know what I have and don’t have.

~This gives a nice visual of the stamps, the name, and the ordering number all in one place.

~There is no need to type up the information on your computer and remember to print it off and stick it in your catalog. Then it falls out and you can’t find the list or you forgot to hit print or just typing out the name isn’t enough for you to know what the item is. When someone asks me about a random stamp set by name, I immediately go to my catalog to see what it looks like. This helps me so much more as I am a visual person!

Another tip I have is to mark all of the items that are retiring when the list comes out at the end of the catalog. Again, I’m a visual person and looking at that long list of items is just crazy to me. I sort the list my page number and go through and mark the items with a different color. My 2017-2018 Catalog is green and red and I wrote with that color in the front so I would know which is which. As you can see in the photo above, No Bones About It is in my collection and it is retiring this month! Both a red and green X makes me sad but I always remember more fabulous goodies are coming out soon so there will be new stuff to play with! 🙂

I hope you try this out and see if it works for you! Of course, everyone has their way of organizing and what works for one might not work for another. I wanted to share mine in hopes to help even just 1 of you out. This works for me and avoids frustration on ordering duplicates and helps me see what I have and still NEED (or want). hehe

If you would like to see all of this in action and my big 39 Week Ziggy Belly, check out the Video Tutorial below or click here! Be sure to give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and don’t forget to subscribe if you are new. If you would like a notification when I post a new video, be sure to click the bell right next to the subscribe!!!

Happy Stampin’

~Laura