Happy New Year and I hope this year is bringing everyone good luck and happiness. It has been a while since my last post but that does not mean I have not been up to my usual shenanigans.  Lately, I have been working on my scrap pile once again. I tackled it last year during a weeklong caardvarks contest; I used only scraps to make all my cards. Well, I have done a lot of layouts and invitations lately and my scrap pile has yet again gotten out of control. One of my goals I have been working on is to become a true master of the scraps and make all my cards from scraps. It has been very hard and trying sometimes, especially if I want a particular color and I know I have a full sheet of it in my drawer. I have not given in to temptation but I have found a few strategies to help the process.

When I sit down to make some cards I will first pull out all the biggest pieces and see if I can make the card base out of them. Once I have a few cards folded, I will then pull out pieces that are about 3×3 or bigger and cut out a hand full of different shapes using my sizzixs or cricut. I found this very help full for example, the other day I cut out a small pile of flowers in whatever scraps I had. Not only can I use them on my cards but I also have them on hand for other projects. I like this idea of just taking scraps and cutting out shapes so much that I started a small box of die cuts. If I am not in the mood to make a card I will go threw my scrap box and cut out die cuts for my box. Once I have a small pile of cards and die cuts I will then collect scraps of what ever else I have in my room such as ribbon and miscellaneous embellishments, like rhinestones that you only have one left of a particular color.  When I have all my scrap, leftovers and random embellishments collected I lay them all out on my table and start arranging elements together that coordinate or match, then from there I start making cards.

I have found this process to very effective and I have come up with some great cards. In a little less than week, I made 21 cards.  When I first made them I left off any sayings so I could then add a stamp or sticker to match the occasion I need a card for. You just don’t want to make a million birthday cards and need a get well card. I am very glad I did this because I have been needing many thank you cards lately with the anticipated arrival of a new baby soon.

Little by little my scrap pile is getting smaller and smaller. My advice would be to save all your scraps that are about 2×2 inches or bigger, start a box and throw in paper, ribbon, borders and that last colored rhinestone that just wont fit on your lay out. Then every once in a while sit down with that box sort it and see how many cards you can get out of it. My goal for my out of control box is 100 cards and I am almost 1/4 of the way there.