Make It Monday – Use Those Scraps!

Welcome to another Make It Monday post. It’s been awhile! Did you miss me?
(Just kidding!)

You may have arrived from Karen’s site where she is sharing her Creative Live experience for four Mixed media classes.

Today I wanted to share one of my strategies for dealing with scraps.

You know what I’m talking about, right? All those off-cuts at the side of your paper trimmer. All those bits of card stock with words cut out of them after you’ve cut out your title with your Silhouette. We’ve all got them, but I bet we treat them differently. There are probably as many solutions as there are scrapbookers!

What’s yours? Love to hear it in the comments or on my Facebook Page.

Some throw everything smaller than 6″ x 6″ away, but having been brought up by a frugal, “I lived through WWII and must save everything in case I may need it down the road”, Scottish mother I just can’t do that. In fact, hearing about such people makes me cringe just a little! But, I was drowning in my scraps so something needed to happen. A Happy Medium needed to be reached!

My solution?

A drawer. Only one. When it gets full it’s time to clean, cull and donate!

This is my Scraps Drawer circa 2013.

It goes through various iterations of looking this neat and tidy. Currently I wouldn’t describe it as such which must mean it’s time for a clean out!

This is where I throw my off-cuts. Anything bigger than 2″x2″ pretty much. My style is quite layered so I find that I do use smaller scraps if I have them.

Back in 2013 I was keeping my card stock scraps elsewhere but I gave that up (one less step sounds good, right?) and now everything gets chucked in here whenever I am cleaning off my work surface.

Now what?

Okay, so you’ve corralled your scraps in one spot. You regularly (cough, cough) sort through it and donate unwanted scraps to your kids crafty endeavours. You dig through your bin when you need a little something something on your layouts. You ‘re feeling pretty good! Pretty frugal, even. Go Scottish Frugality!

What if I said you can do better? Would you believe me?

Have you ever purposefully only used scraps on your projects? Be they cards, layouts or mini albums – scraps can be beautiful. Let me show you some examples.

1. Cards from paper strips.

I made up several card fronts as well as finished cards using strips cut from my scraps for a feature post over at Practical Scrappers. Click on the photo to be taken to that post to learn my process and see all the cards.

2. Cards using shapes punched from scraps.

This may be my new favourite way to use up scraps! I actually had a ton of pre-punched butterflies that were a combination of left overs from another project and a way of using up paper scraps. (i.e. I’d punched butterfly shapes out of some scraps rather than put the scrap in my drawer, figuring I’d use the butterfly on a project long before I used that paper scrap.)

I liked the card above so much I made this one for my middle daughters 9th birthday last week.

Nine butterflies for my nine year old!

This method is super simple. Pick your punch shape (you can use a die or electronic cutting machine if you prefer), grab your scraps, and punch away. Once you have enough shapes punched out for your project you can feel good about letting that scrap fall into the recycling bin instead of back into your drawer.

Ahhh!

3. Mix and match mini album out of scraps.

I made this entire album from some old photo holders (the kind you get with kids sports teams photos) and leftover scraps from my scrap bin. To see it come together please check out the original post here.

I have got to say that this album used up a significant portion of my scrap bin. I felt physically lighter afterwards! Highly recommend creating a larger project like this from your scraps every so often!

4. Create a Sunburst on a layout with scraps.

Sunbursts can be fun to make and a great way to use up larger pieces from your scrap drawer. You can read all about this layout by clicking here. Oh, and this tip applies to more than just sunbursts. Any type of background pattern can be made on your layout using scraps – patchwork, stripes, checker board, chevron, you name it.

5. Home decor from scraps and stash items.

One last idea for you (five makes a nice round number, don’t you think?) This one is to use up your scraps as well as some stash items to create thematic decorations. In this case, a Valentine’s Day Hanging Heart Streamers. You can read about it by clicking the photo below.

For this I took all the pink and red coloured patterned paper or card stock out of my scraps drawer and used my nesting heart dies to cut out all sizes of hearts. I happened to have a package of Valentine’s themed chipboard shapes languishing in my stash so I put them to use on the hearts. Once again it was a great way to use up a ton of stash while making something that made my family happy. Win win!

I hope I’ve inspired you to do something with your scraps. I’d love to hear how you save and store them! Share on my Facebook Page so we can all get some new ideas!

To keep hopping around our Make it Monday Blog Circle head on over to Jen’s site where she is sharing a quick and easy way to create a photobook.

As for me, I’m off to clean out my scrap drawer!!

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