The economy, economy, economy. It stinks. And I am tired of hearing about it and I bet you are too. But we ain't gonna give up scrapping, no way, no how, no matter how bad this nonsense gets!
I've recently been delving into my scraps more to make my dollar stretch…okay, and also because they have grown and no longer fit in the bin I have for scraps! One of the easiest things to do with scraps is to use them to create punchies. Tammy I punches paper into circles and scallop circles and filled the top of her Tammy I case with them–she always has journaling spots handy. If you make a habit of it, it can be pretty easy to camp out with a bag of scraps and a few punches to crank out some punchies while you watch your favorite show or a movie.
But if you don't have time or the desire to do that, then you can always take a few circle punches of various diameters plus a bag of scraps with you to crops. Some of the ideas I show below may be old hat to some of you if you read my blog regularly but hey, a reminder is always nice!
Here are some ideas of projects you can use your circle punched scraps for:
1. Punch from the pattern. Many patterned papers, like Bo Bunny's Popsicle line, come with circles printed in the paper. Just punch out the circles and embellish! I like to punch slightly off center for a whimsical effect, like I did on this card:
2. Add brads or buttons. On this page I used a few punched circles to embellish the page in addition to a few brads. The punched circle acts like a pseudo-brad.
You can even back clear buttons with punched circles. Here I stitched clear buttons to circle stickers (as shown in yesterday's blog post) but you can do the same thing with paper circles.
3. Mat embellies. As much as it is taboo to love Jolee's Boutique stickers, I do love them because they have so many themes to match family and kids pages. I reworked this Dr. Seuss page that I had been struggling with by using punched circles to mat my embellies and add a touch of whimsy:
4. Paper piece. The monkey featured on my “Our Little Monkey” books (version 1 and 2) are made with punched circles–that's it! This monkey on a wall hanging we did in Book Club last year was made the same way but by using Sizzix circle dies.
You can pretty much create any shape with punchies. Layer them to create something or fill in a shape, like a star, tree, or Christmas tree, with punched shapes. Here I used asterisks instead of circles but you get the idea:
5. Scalloped Edges. Cut circles in half and lay so that all the straight sides are lined up to create a scalloped border like I did on the edge of this sticker:
I'm getting ready to send over my submission for the Bo Bunny Press Design Team! Wish me luck ;) I don't usually create items for DT calls but I did for this one – I really like Bo Bunny and use their products ALOT in classes so I am hoping for the best! Two of my projects are above, the third is the “Our Little Monkey” class I'll be posting sneaks of in my newsletter. So if you wanna see it, be sure to sign up in the newsletter box to the left. My “vacation” is almost over so I'll be back to blogging and sending newsletters out regularly soon.
I'm also off to crop with the Divine Desert Divas tonight and then with Who Gives A Scrap tomorrow in Redlands. Have any scrapply plans this weekend? I hope you have a great one and stay cool.
