Vacation Mementos

If you're like me, every time you go on vacation your purse, pockets, and suitcase become inevitably filled with every single ticket stub, receipt, and travel brochure that you can get your hands on. If you're the creative type, you justify this collection of paper products by telling yourself that you'll use it in upcoming craft project- it'll be for the new paper mache lampshade you're making, or for your new scrapbook. Or maybe you'll use it as emergency toilet paper at the next rest stop. Or maybe you need it so you can tell your friends all about that swanky restaurant, in painful detail. Or maybe you just like looking at the pretty colors.  However, the resulting mess when you get home can be so overwhelming that you end up throwing it all in a pile in the back of your craft closet to deal with another day. How do you avoid this mess?

Idea #1: Take the easy way out. Next time you go on vacation, wear dresses or pants without pockets. Don't carry a purse. Don't carry a backpack. If there's no where for you to stash the papers in the first place, you're less likely to end up with a mess of them by the end. Although, if you're like me, you'll stubbornly carry them around in your hands anyway until you get back to the hotel, where you can safely stash them in your bag...

Idea #2: Enlist help. Whenever someone gives you a piece of paper, give it to your travel buddy. And instruct them to destroy it immediately. If you're oblivious enough, this will work out quite well and you'll never know the difference!

Idea #3: If you must hoard your vacation mementos, be sure to stash, sort, and store them properly! Here's how to do that:

• Stash: Keep the papers your want to keep in a folder or plastic bag while you travel to keep them from wrinkling or getting destroyed in your bag. Limit yourself to one folder/bag to keep yourself from accumulating too much stuff.

• Sort #1: Sometime during your vacation (pick a rainy day or a quiet evening) or on the plane ride home, dump out all those papers you've collected and start sorting them. (this is the point where if you have an intervention in the form of a travel buddy, she can gather all the papers off the floor and throw them in a shredder for you)

              Things to Toss (read: recycle!)
               - anything dirty, wrinkled, water-damaged, torn, or that looks like
                  trash. Or anything that is trash. Don't keep trash.
               - receipts
               - brochures for places you never actually visited
               - duplicates
               - flight schedules, plane ticket stubs, and anything else you can
                 reference online later if need be
               - that phone number from the not-cute guy at the airport that
                  you are never going to call
               - anything you look at and immediately think "what was this from?"

• Sort #2: Next, take a pair of scissors and attack the remaining pile (or rip carefully if you're on the airplane). Go through and ruthlessly cut out all the bits of things you intend on pasting in your scrapbook (or on your lampshade) and toss the rest. If it's information that you want to remember, make a note in your journal or laptop and get rid of the paper. Don't go through the trash pile at the end; don't look back.

• Store: Pick a clear plastic bag, and fill it with the items you plan on keeping. Limit yourself to one bag. Write the name of your vacation destination on the front with the date and keep it with the relevant craft supplies. As soon as you're finished the project, throw the bag away. Or, if you find a bag with a label of more than a year ago, toss it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and do not open that bag again.