Tuesday, June 19, 2012

What to do with all Those Scraps

Like most papercrafters, I have a lot of scraps of paper.  After awhile, I seem to accumulate quite a lot of leftover embellishments, stamped items, etc.  So today I pulled out my pile of leftovers, and challenged myself to make some cards.  On the first card I found a piece of kraft paper, 2 yellow die cut flowers, a white piece of punched trim and a strip of brown paper.  All very blah - so I decided to pull out the ink and stamps.  First, I stamped the large kraft piece with an distress stamp with walnut distress ink.  Then I pulled out a stamp that has elegant lettering and I stamped the flowers.  I then used a decorate scroll to stamp the brown strip of card stock.  Finally, I took the white trim and inked it up with frayed burlap and old paper distress inks.  The center of the flowers were leftover from flowers I punched from coffee cup holders!  They fit just perfect.

On the next card I began with the embossed dragonfly.  I sometimes stamp something, and for whatever reason I decide not to use it.  But I hate throwing any stamped piece out!  I trimmed the dragonfly and then found the scrap piece of tiny flowered print paper.  The purples matched nicely.  Lastly, I had another piece of trim.  I sometimes punch a large piece of trim and don't use it all.  Nothing goes to waste.  I added a purple ribbon and tiny purple rhinestones to give the card a little pizazz.
The last card I did was created when I found a stamped Buddha already cut and the Happy Birthday O' Ancient One also stamped and cut.  I just added a piece of Asian themed paper for the background.
I even found a oriental coin embellishment in my scrap box. (Not shown in picture).  I think the key to using up your scraps to create a great card is to find like components and colors.  I can't wait to try this again. 

So check out your scraps and leftovers and see what you can come up with.  There really is great satisfaction in creating a new card from pieces of leftover scraps of paper and stamped images.  I think I'll try to do this one a month, and keep my scrap pile from growing too large!

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