jamie pate: what the scrap?

ever wonder what to do with all those pieces of scrap paper?

Here was my dilemma:

I needed to do an assignment for the Heidi Swapp Media Team. Color Fresh. Color Fresh is a beautiful bright and happy collection that is found very useful for many themes and projects. When I went to grab the box of my CF stash from my shelf, this is what greeted me. Scraps and scraps of paper cut offs of various and sundry sizes.

What the scrap? indeed. I was a bit overwhelmed. I try to keep collections culled and under control. But this was not under control.

The idea that came to me was to make something with those papers. Right!?!? I mean, it's not like I'm not a self proclaimed paper artist or something. You know what I did, right? I made something.

Here's basically how it went: I would take the paper on top of the pile and do something with it. I made notched banners. I crafted pages with pocket inserts. I made smaller pockets to adhere to some other pages. I just played.

The Benefits of Using Up Your Scraps

1. Use up your scraps to make room for new collections

With two gallon size bags full of scrap papers, it was hard to see what I really had to use to make scrapbook pages or cards or what not. But focusing on what was right in front of me, I plowed through the pile of papers and made something useful. This turned out to be a sort of mixed journal.

Some of the papers were pre-die cut for some other previous project, but didn't quite make the cut. No pun intended. Those were kept intact and used just like they were. This book was a sort of mish-mash of shapes and sizes. It was much creative fun, which leads to my next point.

2. Use your scraps as a sort of creative therapy

I literally had no idea where this project was going to go. Which can be a little scary for us controlling artist types. I chose to be OK with not having a vision for this book of many colors, shapes and sizes. This allowed a sort of flow to take place in my crafting. I found a bit of a zone. Air Pods in, my fav tunes on play, I just played. Not wanting to stop I was actually kind of sad when the papers literally ran out. That said, I won't dread bags of scraps in the future. Rather I will simply allow them to be a road to creativity and flow. Not a bad deal.

3. Using your scraps leads to creative discoveries

Since this project had no real direction, and I chose to just play, it allowed a bit of experimenting. Matching papers and limited to sizes of scraps pushed this a bit more than just easily reaching for ephemera or other embellishments. I made myself use what I had. Focus was pushed more than normal. But then, I didn't even want to be distracted. It was just this zone of creativity and making stuff that was purely good. Honestly cannot wait to do this again.

A couple of ideas to share that I discovered as I went along this little scrap-fest journey:

use every scrap you come upon. The smallest papers became tabs. I have tabs everywhere in this book. And I love it.
use your paper punches to make the most out of all the papers. I used circle punches, heart punches, tab punches. Plus mini envelopes found new homes here. It was good to just rediscover some of my tools. Oh and tags...make tags to your hearts content.
paper too small to punch and add to the binding became interactive pockets or flaps.
stay with a color palette. This may not have been thinking outside the box too much for me. There is always a need to keep things more cohesive than not. Thing is, I had a lot of pink toned papers to use. So I was actually left with very little scraps when I was done.
decluttering our older stash makes room for new and fresh ideas

I hope this inspired you on several levels. Use up those scraps in creative ways and enjoy the process.

Always enjoy the process.

Heidi Swapp Color Fresh Collection can be found at JoAnn Stores...

and also here below:

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