You know my passion for scrapbooking. It is like an everyday miracle – to take something which is ready for the rubbish bin and to give it a second life. And to send a message with this act: Think before you buy! Think about the planet!
Why not make your own craft materials? You already have a great base around you – especially for scrapbooking! Every day a lot of soft cardboard boxes and many different packages come into your home, which are amazing source to create something new, something different.
I like the designer’s scrapbook collections in shops, but do not buy them. Do I really need them? No. Where is the game there, where is the challenge? The ticklishness of your mind? And isn’t it a little bit like cheating? Someone created these elements for you, printed them, cut them, packaged them and then sent them to the shop for you. Really? Where is the crafting incentive? Where is the joy of looking, thinking, trying… where are the moments of failing and the moments of success, the anger and happiness? And where is really the Scrap? Тhe quest is missing.
And scrapbooking is all about the quest!
So, yes, sometimes I think I’m like a paper hoarder, but my home is really full of great scrapbooking materials. I have boxes and boxes with all these wonderful pieces of paper and will show you how easy is to make something really nice from… almost nothing.
I am saying “nothing”, because the material does not existing, until you “see” it.
See my materials:
These cardboard pieces from boxes for pills, from candies, from beer, from frozen dough. Normally in most homes, they going immediately into the waste paper container.
But see the wonderful nuances they have, all these natural colours – most of them not even bleached, because they are in contact with food.
My belief is that for scrapbooking it is very good to buy instruments, but not so good to buy materials. See, with these cardboard pieces I can make wonderful “jewellery paper” pieces – only using my beloved Sizzix Big shot machine and only one embossing folder. Good instruments make your work easy and the elements you make unique.
After that all the work is easy. Just make elements, combine and decorate them.
Some secrets
Blend (very often I am using markers, not inks), play with the colours, explore, enjoy! (About my favourite “Save my life blending tool” you can read here: ANZAK paper poppy flower wreath)
Look at these ink spots! They give the flat white snowflake more volume.
This small piece is “waste”. Making the wreath with the birds, I had to remove it. But now it makes a wonderful branch:
The only “virgin” materials I used for this Christmas greeting card were – the card base and the coffee filters for the flowers. But the card base I didn’t buy. I made it from a sheet from a sketchbook.
And another secret. I am not using these special easy to clean mats. I am using a simple thick paper, very often a watercolour paper. After finishing a project or two, this paper, with all the colours, dried glue or ink stains and colour spots will be a unique base for Project Number 3.
And this is how the Christmas greeting card from scrap looks in the end:
So… imagine how many wonderful packages you will receive with your Christmas presents. Do not throw them in the recycling bin! First see how you can use them and cut the parts you think will be helpful for your work. You will be amazed how many great pieces of material you will have – absolutely priceless and for zero money.
Enjoy your craft quest and have a Happy Christmas!
