I absolutely love it when UPS rings the bell and leaves me a big box out of the blue.  Samples!  Yay!  It is like Christmas morning no matter what day it is and a frenzy of tape cutting, box ripping & packing peanuts flying ensues.  I adore unpacking every piece and carefully checking it out ~ especially looking for ©BJ Lantz!

But once the buzz wears off, I am left with the reality of a table full of products that have to be stored.  (Captain Hubby literally groans when he sees these piles ~ which is carefully & quickly followed by oohs & ahhs of all my lovely babies)

The other day just such a box arrived from Creative Converting filled with my new Stafford collection.

I was so pleased when they not only chose my fine china-inspired design for their anniversary collection, they also decided to blow it out on a variety of products ~ plates, napkins, invitations, place cards, table coverings, cups, balloons, banners, and even thank you cards.  And, even better, they did it in three color-ways for 50th, 25th and 40th anniversaries.

Now I know I am not the only one with this “problem”.  What on earth do you do with all your samples??  I give loads of them away, which really is fun, but some things are not easily given away ~ such as the above ~ or you’ve inundated everybody you know with as much as they can take.  Really, there is only so much you can give away.  I have also given some to my mother-in-law and friends for fund raising sales.  I myself find it hard to toss any of this stuff ~ they embody so many things from them just being my artwork, to verifying that I am indeed working and succeeding in this industry.

A few months ago I decided I needed to do something about the samples that were over-running my studios.  I bought a whole bunch of plastic storage bins with good locking tops and made space on some shelves in the garage.  Nine of these bins are full and taking up all the available shelf space and this one ~ the 10th ~ is bound for the attic.  I like them being accessible in the garage so that I can open them up to pull stuff to give people when I need to.  But as for this stuff ~ I won’t need it until my in-laws’ 50th anniversary in 2011….

So tell me, what do you do with all your samples?

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