For the second year in a row, my partner gave me a subscription to Doodles by Ben‘s Pin Badge Club. The result is monthly happy mail for me.

The subscription is for a small monthly box that always contains the month’s original badge (this past month was a friendly comet), stickers of the month’s design, a magnet of the month’s design, and some sorts of little surprises. The surprises are sometimes sweets, sometimes extra stickers, one time a little keychain. It’s all so much fun and I think Ben, the artist and creative maker responsible for this monthly box of fun, is brilliant.

Aren’t these badges wonderful? I especially like the axolotl because, well, it’s an axolotl.

More badge wonderfulness – note that the hedgehog pairs with the squirrel above.
I do wear the badges, usually by pinning them to jackets, but enjoy the stickers at least as much. This gets to the problem part of this post. I find it stupidly hard to use my stickers. It’s always a fight, even when I want to use them. I get into this mentality of scarcity, this sadness that if I use a sticker then I won’t have that sticker anymore.

A small sampling of this past year’s stickers.
This is, of course, ridiculous, especially since I get multiple stickers a month from Ben, buy planner stickers off Etsy, and have more stickers than I will ever use. I have the same problem with washi tape and ink — however much I may use in a month, I buy more. The accumulation continues.

Look! I used the wonderful Axolotl sticker on this semester’s bullet journal.
I joke about hoarding, but accumulating is a real issue. We live in a small two-bedroom apartment (probably about 700-800 square feet) and storage is limited. I don’t have space for a dedicated craft desk so things like stickers and washi tape have to be put away which keeps them out of sight. If I use them, I get to see them.

I’ve used some of my stickers on my pinky Macbook.
So one of my resolutions this year is to USE ALL THE THINGS. The world is full of stickers and makers of stickers. I can always get more stickers. Plus, when I use stickers, I get to see them.