Scraps of paper with a challenge

     When you work on other projects, what do you do with the leftover scraps of paper - do you throw them away, or do you save the scraps for use later on?  If you throw them away - you are wasting so much money - learn to save your scraps to use later on - not only will this save money - but sometimes it saves time by having an exact piece of cardstock in the exact color you needed!  

     I was working on another project - a gratitude album made out of a corn dog box - the flowers for this card were all made from scraps from that project...adding just the card pack from Making Memories for the note card bases.  The insides are left plain in order to be able to customize it to the person receiving the card.  

     The bookmarks were all made with scraps of paper from other projects - from the bases to the embellishments on the top... everything is made with scraps of paper.  If you have been working on a child's layout, the scraps from that can be used to make a simple bookmark if it is something your child really likes, or is maybe in their favorite colors.  Or, you might be working on a special project for someone, use the leftovers to make a card and bookmark to go with the gift - finish it up by using the rest of the stuff on a gift bag!  With the layout idea you will see below - I wouldn't have wanted to use a whole sheet of the colors I used - instead I used scraps to build the title (first cutting all the letters out in white), and scraps again in the arrow and tag.   

     Scraps are meant to help you save money - by using them for paper piecing patterns, punches, to make book marks or cards, as one of a kind embellishments by using a combo of different things to create tags...  Even if you don't use up the scraps right then - learn to  keep them...whether you throw them in a basket to use as you go - or you categorize them by color - just save them!  As I work on a project, I have a 3 drawer organizer that I use one of the drawers for all the scraps I have.  When it gets full, I then take that drawer and put them into the file folders I have for each color.  You can also use clear bags for each color - whatever works best for you.  

     One important thing about keeping your extra papers, decide how small you are going to save them - or if it is basic colors, may I suggest not to save each and every small piece from every project you do - you will end up having way too many papers and you won't use them all.  If you know you have a perfect size to make a few bookmarks, then cut them down and put them in one area.  If you know something will be perfect for a specific card you need to do, make a basic card category system in the cards you make a lot of, so you can make a quick card later on.  
     I hope you learn to save scraps - your challenge for the weekend, make something from scraps of paper that you have...or start some sort of a system for you to keep your scraps!  

Lynda Jeffs

Memories in Tyme