Groovin' with the Go-to Gals – Tales from the Scrap Pile…

Jessica Witty

Little known facts about me:

1. Previous odd jobs include balloon bouquet maker (fun!), gourmet food basket designer (mmm…that was a good one) and roller-skating carhop (still bear the scars from that one). 
2. I can spout off advertisement jingles like nobody’s business. (It’s a sick, sick talent. Especially during the holidays.)
3. I am frugal. Not cheap, because cheap sounds yucky. Frugal sounds less yucky and more wise. 
4. When it comes to designing, I tend to think too much. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Numbers 3 & 4 combined make for some pretty big disadvantages when it comes to designing. For instance, when I go to make a card with my favorite paper, I am most definitely going to plan, plan, plan that card out to a T before I make a single cut in that paper. And then when I finally do bite the bullet, I simply cannot part with the tiny sliver that is left over at the end of my projects. So, what’s a girl to do?

Enter the scrap pile. 

Not a new concept, I know. However, it’s new to me, so follow me here. 

First, I scrounged up what I considered to be the perfect container. And what did I find? A pewter “Give us this day, our daily bread” plate. (Anyone else have one of those?) It’s possible that I picked this plate because I am lazy and the china cabinet is right next to my supply cabinet. 

Next, I set the said plate directly behind me on the aforementioned supply cabinet. I filled it up in approximately one week of card making. No joke. I just tossed in various patterned paper scraps, extra die-cuts, stamped images that I ended up changing out, etc.

On to actually using the scraps. This is where little known fact #4 comes in. I decided to challenge myself to use the scraps to make complete cards in 10 minutes or less. Now, I *love* quick and easy cards. However, have you ever noticed that it sometimes takes quite a bit of effort to make something that’s quick, easy and cute? Yeah, me too.

So, my goal here was to sort of set the part of me aside that tends to question every move I make while designing and just *do it.* No expectations of making the best card ever, no thoughts of layer upon layer of intricate loveliness or even what am I going to do next? I barred that particular thought from my mind. The goal was to just DO. (Can you just hear Yoda? “There is no try. There is only do.”)

I wanted to use mostly scraps, along with simple cardstock bases, and to limit any extra supplies to sentiment stamps or items absolutely necessary to finish up each card. I wasn’t super legalistic with the rules…I just tried to be conscious of the fact that the goal was finishing, not thinking too much, and not taking up extra time on non-necessary items.

The first card that came to me was this little birthday cutie…

Nothing fancy…just a little scrap paper cake. I absolutely could not part with the candle sticker that ended up getting cut from a project! I allowed myself to use some yellow chalk around the candle sticker because it was a super quick add-on. Then I added the scalloped Hambly overlay to the green layer because I thought it added to the impression of frosting. Love that. The stamped sentiment serves as the cake base.

Next up is a birthday card with a dotted theme. I’ve been playing around with dry embossing on glassine bags and thought the extra strips might look cute as a ruffle. The embossed dots then led me to the glitter paper scrap and blue and white scrap, both of which happened to go well with the sentiment that made it to the scrap pile after a previous project ended up with a different flourish. All the colors matching was a happy accident.

This one is probably my favorite of my marathon card-making session. I ended up punching the strip at the bottom and added glitter to it, so it *might* have put me just over 10 minutes. I love how the patterns and colors turned out…so soft and pretty.

I’m super excited with how my scrap-pile-10-minute-challenge turned out! It totally made me realize how just going with the flow and not thinking so much all the time can be a good thing for me. It also made it much easier for me to feel okay about throwing the things out that I knew I likely wouldn’t use again because I was still throwing lots of loved little tidbits in the scrap pile. There was a bonus there in that I actually really looked forward to my scrap project all week because I was already anticipating getting to throw my favorites together in some new ways!

I’d love to see any scrap-pile-10-minute-challenge cards that you come up with! Just link them in the comments below and I’ll visit your blog or gallery to check them out! 

I’m considering turning this into a regular challenge on my blog, so visit me over there for more results from my scrap pile marathons!

And…because it’s just so darned timely…yes, I’m frugal, so of course I will be out shopping on Black Friday! At 3AM. Wish me luck! And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Paper Crafts Go-to Gal,
Jessica Witty