USE YOUR SCRAPS

Have you ever experienced this? 

You have just completed the prep work for a project, only to discover that you had numerous cool pieces of scrap, a.k.a., garbage, that you just could not bring yourself to actually toss into the circular file? They were just too too COOL!

I know those of you who have been reading my blog for some time already know that I have a really difficult time throwing stuff away. I mean, who knows when just that particular item might come in so handy as the perfect touch for a project that might come to mind sometime in the future!?! And then, if it had been thrown out the way it probably should have, it would have been a MISSED OPPORTUNITY! Oh no! Horrors.

Anyway, back to my first paragraph. I had just finished planning and making up my sample for a card for my August Stamp-In Workshop. I had covered nice-sized chunks of watercolor paper in the six different colors that the Pigment Sprinkles (page 179, Annual Catalog) come in, anticipating cutting the dried pieces into strips to be used on cards. 

I had figured incorrectly, and the strips were 1/2" too long for my purpose. So I proceeded to trim off those 1/2" pieces. 

The pieces looked so colorful and inviting lying alongside the paper trimmer. I gathered them into my hands, and gazed down upon them. I just did not have the heart to throw these precious little pieces away. So I haplessly put them on my work table. 

Maybe . . .

The strips were 1/2" x 1 1/4", and they haunted me every single time I glanced down at them.

Until, finally the other day, I came completely under their spell and started to move them into various formations. Against my woodgrain table, they looked wonderful enough, but I thought that played up against a solid black cardstock, they would really pop. 

That proved to be absolutely correct. So -- I just couldn't resist -- I started gluing them in place against the black. The resulting piece was so bright and cheerful that it almost took my breath away. I wanted to make it into a card, but I struggled with the thought of covering up any of that colorful sparkle.

I satisfied my hesitation by doing a tiny sentiment on white against a teeny border of the black. I had a strangely sized piece of the purple lying there unused. I felt the sentiment piece needed just a little something else, and when my eyes landed on that poor unwanted strip of purple, I decided to adhere it to the back of my sentiment strip, and popped it up on my card front with two Stampin' Dimensionals. 

Since one of the Pigment Sprinkles is Melon Mambo, I opted to use that color cardstock for my card base.

I sadly mourn these photos of my card. You see, the brightness, the cheeriness, and the pop and pizzazz do not come through at all. Even my Melon Mambo card base isn't true in its color. I apologize to you because you are really missing out on a colorful treat.

Would you have had the courage to throw away these colorful little gems???

Scrappy

Smiles.