Scavenger Scrapbooking: Craft or Sewing Room Treasures

Welcome back, Scrappers for Day Five of Scavenger Scrapbooking! Yesterday's challenge was hard for me -- I was stumped with finding something.  If you found treasure from the workroom, don't forget to link up your project HERE.

There is an example I can show you of a layout completed a while ago with a found item: old luggage keys. (Remember the days when we could lock our luggage with these little things??)

 Today's search is in . . . . The Craft Room!

Yes, this may seem to be too obvious a place to look for hidden treasure, but let's take a relook, shall we?  While this may seem to be an obvious choice, we may have passed over some great goodies that can be additions to our scrapbooking stash. Ready for this challenge??

Don't forget to look through your crafts and sewing boxes for:

• sewing machine or old sewing patterns
• patches, fabric remnants
• embroidery thread
• feathers, fringe
• felt, yarn
• lace, elastic, rick rack, seam bias, zippers
• leather pieces
• foam craft pieces
• measuring tapes, pins
• gift bags and tags
• silk flowers
• beads

And if you are sure you won't find anything in your own craft room, maybe you can get permission to rummage through a family member's sewing or craft box. Not too long ago, my mom got rid of an old sewing machine table that she had around forever.  I had no place for it (I wish that I had!) but what I really wanted was to get inside those drawers before she threw everything out.  The button drawer was the grand prize; I was able to get a mason jar full of beloved buttons to use for scrapbooking and all sorts of projects!  

Or if you have the budget for it, allow yourself so much to spend at a local Thrift Shop or Goodwill Store. Look for some of the items above that you could find yourself tearing apart and using.  

Make sure you share what you find!

Lastly, if you would rather have a color challenge today, here is something fun:  Go get a favorite pillow in your home and put it by your scrap area.  Use the color and/or pattern from it as the inspiration for today's project!  

Use your item and/or inspiration to make a scrapbook or craft project.  Link up any of your projects for this series to THIS MAIN PAGE at any time so that future readers can become inspired by your project!  

Scavenger Scrapbooking: Workroom Wonders

Welcome to Day Four of Scavenger Scrapbooking!  Did you complete a search of the bedroom, bathroom or beyond from yesterday?  Was it like going to "infinity and beyond?"

I have to say, I didn't think I would have much luck in my own hunt yesterday, but I did come across a couple things that didn't get thrown out in my "cleansing" right after Christmas.

Yes, that is a ponytail holder that was stretched out and unusable, plus an earring with a long, lost mate.  So what do you come up with for this?

The filigree on the hair band reminded me of this Cricut embossing folder I haven't used in eons, and the earring was the inspirations for the colors.  I will probably still use the earring beads for another card. 

Don't forget to link any of your projects for this week HERE.  

Ready for the next challenge?  Today it is the WORKROOM.  

This could be quite an opportunity for some unique finds!

If this area is considered the "Man Cave" of your home and it is an area you would rather not attempt, I understand! (We have certain "man rules" at our house too!)  Try another room such as the Mud Room, Hall Closet, inside the family vehicles, or the area of your home that is considered the "Drop Spot."

Here are some items that may spark your creativity from the workroom, garage or other area:

• wire
• old keys
• picture hangers
• paint chips, flooring or laminate samples
• garden seed packets
• washers, bolts, grommets
• hinges or other small metal accents
• nails and screws*
• paint sticks
• sand paper
• cardboard
• old measuring tape or wooden ruler
• fast food wrappers, recycling

*Use a Dremel tool to cut off the top of nails or screws in order to use them on your page.

If this becomes difficult, try this:  While looking at this area of your home may not necessarily give you inspiration, you could find a texture for a project technique, a color from the family car or your gardening items, or the set-up of a work table for a sketch idea.  Oh yes -- we can really thinking outside the box. Or the garage, per se.

Use your item and/or inspiration to make a scrapbook or craft project.  Link up any of your projects for this series to THIS MAIN PAGE at any time so that future readers can become inspired by your project!  

Scavenger Scrapbooking: Bed, Bath and Beyond

Welcome to Day Three, Scavenger Scrapbooker!  Did you complete the hunt of the kitchen yesterday?  Did you remember to link up your project HERE?

After looking through my own kitchen, I discovered this stash that probably won't be used in it's original state anytime in the near future:

Yes, I have become one of those Coffee Addicts.  Tea is lovely, but I am usually finding something to wake me up more than to relax me!  After this find, I put together this quick pocket card:

This is an origami folded pocket card started from an 8" x 8" size sheet of paper. It is simply decorated with flowers, ribbon and a "digital sentiment."  (I created my own because I wanted a specific sentiment that I didn't have a stamp for)  Something great to give the Bestie for Valentine's Day.

Here is another idea using a coffee cup warmer:

This was an over sized Thank You card I made for my son's teacher last Spring, as a fun way to give her a Starbucks gift card.

Today's challenge: the Bedroom, Bathroom and Beyond
The "Beyond" can be another room in your house such as the laundry room.  I know that you're thinking that this search could be tricky, but you'll be surprised at what you can find!  As you start your hunt today, here are some items that may trigger creativity:

• safety pins, Band-aids
• emery boards, nail polish
• shoelaces, cording from old sweat jackets
• clothing tags or price tags from new clothing
• old or broken jewelry pieces (beads, bling, hooks)
• playing cards or miscellaneous game pieces, puzzle pieces, Legos
• items from clothing to be discarded:  buttons, beads, tags, pockets, lace
• greeting cards, old magazines or puzzle books
• box from a favorite cologne or cosmetics
• ribbon or twine from a cosmetic bag or pouch
• dryer sheets, cotton balls
• candy wrappers (come'on -- I know you have a stash like I do!)

Remember to hunt in your kids' rooms too!  THAT can be an interesting thing all in itself, right?

Would you rather have a Color Challenge?  Look at one of these rooms and find a color that could be the inspiration for today's project.

Use your item and/or inspiration to make a scrapbook or craft project.  Link up any of your projects for this series to THIS MAIN PAGE at any time so that future readers can become inspired by your project!  

Scavenger Scrapbooking: Kitchen Catch-all

Welcome to Day Two of Scavenger Scrapbooking!  Did you complete the hunt in the Home Office from my previous post?  Did you remember to link up your project HERE?

After taking a  look at our home office, this is what I found yesterday:

I totally forgot about this hole punch -- it has a hole that is bigger than the ones on my Crop-a-dile and a better size for standard tags.  Score!

From these random paperclips, I found some scraps of ribbon and looped them through the top to make my own embellishments.  Here is one:

Easy to make and much cheaper than buying them premade.  From the Proverbs magnet, I made a card, using the colors as inspiration:

This card doesn't have a sentiment, so I may just enclose the magnet when I send the card!  The other scripture card in my finds was also used as color inspiration:

For this layout, I used a birthday photo and then followed Crystal Schneider's sketch that is now live at The Memory Nest blog for the Monday Challenge!  This sketch was just perfect for scrapping this photo while using some My Mind's Eye "So Sophie" Royal paper. I added a little of the light aqua in order to break up the dark colors with a nice splash of fun.  

Did you find several items in your search but don't have time to make projects with all your treasures?  That's okay! Use a basket to keep your goodies together -- it will serve as inspiration for days to come!  (And of course, you may certainly end up using several of the items on one project!)

Don't forget to link up your project(s)!  I cannot WAIT to see what you've put together!!  

Now on for today's challenge:  The Kitchen.

Let's take a fresh look and see what we can find that will become a new element on our next page.  This room can be a catch-all for so many "intriguing" things, right?  Here are some more ideas to get your hunt started today:

• coffee filters, cupcake liners, doilies
• tea bag envelopes, canned food labels
• straws, wine corks, bottle caps
• junk mail, store receipts
• take-out menus
• old cookbooks or recipe cards
• cookie cutters
• paper lunch sacks
• mesh produce bags
• paper coffee cut holders
• aluminum foil
• string, bread bag tags
• popsicles, chopsticks, toothpicks

Don't forget to check the front of your refrigerator for artwork, notes, reminders and of course, photos.

Would you rather try a different challenge?  Look at your kitchen and/or dining room as a whole.  Is there an item or color that can be your inspiration for today's project?

Use your item and/or inspiration to make a scrapbook or craft project.  Link up any of your projects for this series to THIS MAIN PAGE at any time so that future readers can become inspired by your project!  

Scavenger Scrapbooking Series: Home Office

Welcome to Day One of this fun series!  We are going on a daily Scavenger Hunt of our homes this week in order to find items of inspiration for a new scrapbook project.

For the next five days, I will give you a challenge for finding something to use differently. For instance, could you use the found item as a:

1. Unique embellishment or ephemera? 
2. Overlooked tool? 
3. Something to turn into a trendy embellishment?
4. Color inspiration for a new project?
5. Subject of it's own scrapbook page?

Today's challenge: Home Office Review. 
Sometimes we forget about the handy items we could use from this room. As you start your scavenger hunt, open up your mind as you look for something that could have a new use.  Here are some items to get you started:

• printer labels
• old mail envelopes (look for cancelled stamps)
• binder clips and paper clips
• file folders and file tabs
• CDs (new or old)
• stationery with matching envelopes
• key fobs or rings
• receipt books, rolodex or index cards
• coin, CD or other specialty envelopes
• old books, dictionary, thesaurus
• brads, rubber bands
• hole punch, date stamps
• Post-It notes or similar
• packing tags, ticket rolls
• punched hole reinforcements

Grab an item that makes you go "Aha!"

Finally, look at the entire room.  Is there an object or color that could trigger some creativity?  

Use your item and/or inspiration to make a scrapbook or craft project.  Link up any of your projects for this series to THIS MAIN PAGE at any time so that future readers can become inspired by your project!  

Inspiration Series: Scavenger Scrapbooking!

Welcome to my a new blog series to kick off 2014!

January is always my month to set goals and to rethink ways in which I can save money in the family budget. To help with this, I select two months of the year in which I do a total "scrap fast."  A "scrap fast" is my name for going the entire month without spending any money towards scrapbooking or cardmaking supplies. Gulp. It is definitely one of the hardest things to do (besides working out!) but it also forces encourages me to use what I have in my stash. (Kinda like a self-inflicted challenge!)

This month is one of my chosen "scrap fast" months. Because December is usually such a great time to find spectacular crafting deals, I too indulge in a little Merry-Christmas-to-Me shopping.  Scheduling a "scrap fast" in January is not only helpful for the wallet, but it is a little easier when I already have some new things in my stash to use.

If you are in the same type of situation, or want to use this month to hold back on the craft spending, this series will be a unique way to have some fun while spending no money.  Ready for the challenge?

Each day during this series, I will challenge you find items in specific rooms in your home that you will use toward a scrapbook page layout.  Think of it as a new way to rejuvenate your scrapbooking mojo and get some layouts finished.

Once you have finished any of this series challenges, you are welcome to link your project below using Mr. Linky for future readers to get inspiration!  

LINK UP YOUR WEEK'S PROJECT HERE:

Scrapbooking Process: Using up Stash!

This past week, I have been going through all our digital photos, making sure they were organized properly and saved all in one place.  The process included going through various CDs, my hubby's computer files, my computer and our external hard drive.  It was quite the job, but I have now compiled what I figure to be all the important family photos in one spot on our external hard drive, by year and by month, with all duplicates and renegade photos accounted for.  The phone photos were the hardest -- before owning an iPhone, the dates were not recorded on the photo files, so I had to match those photos to others where clothing and haircuts were similar!

Now that this job is finished, I feel as though important photos will no longer be missed that need to be scrapped.  Not that I will scrap all of them -- but I knew there were some random shots that told fun and interesting stories that needed to be in our albums.

Here is one of those stories:  My husband took our oldest son, when he was 5, for a very short, shaved, barber shop haircut that nearly gave me a heart attack at the time.  Looking back now, he was stinkin' cute!  

Here is my thinking process for this layout.  First, I decided to really dig in my stash and use only "old" stuff.  There is way too much paper in my paper box, so I need to get into it and start using it up.  I pulled some Paper Loft papers from different collections that meshed nicely together, plus a little bit of this and that from all over my scrap area:

Next, I chose a sketch.  Most of the time, I will start with Pagemaps.  This sketch from October 2012 looked promising and I thought it could develop into a two photo layout:

As you'll see from the finished layout, things didn't go quite as planned! First, I ditched the second photo. Since one photo was portrait and the other landscape, I couldn't find a way to bring good continuity to the layout using both.  Second, I turned the layout so that the long border grounded my focal photo better.  A switch of Paper Loft paper from greens to blues were brought in as well as a chipboard set from Basic Grey that I bought awhile ago at Big Lots and never used.  Since frames are making a big comeback, the rust colored frame from that set worked extremely well with my chosen papers.  

Finally, I brought in just a couple new items (I couldn't resist) to rev up the final layout:  a wood veneer and title letters from the Basic Grey "PB & J" collection.  Journaling will be added on a tag and tucked behind the photo later.  

Notice the Urban "tag" that I used on my layout? Rummage your home for things like this for your own ephemera.

Hope this gives you some inspiration as you scrap this week! What's your page layout process??

Frugal Scrapping: Supplies from the Sewing Department - Video

A couple weeks ago, I shared some finds in the Sewing Department of my local Walmart that make for great embellishments for scrapbooking. (You can read the full post HERE.)  This week I did a video, so if you'd like to see the items I purchased, you can watch it here:

Frugal Scrapbooking: Supplies from the Sewing Department

Where I live in Texas, I don't live close to a Walmart (shocking, I know!) so my opportunities to shop there are limited.  Yesterday, however, I made a special trip to a Walmart in Austin, mainly because my mom wanted to go and look for something in particular.

Many Walmart stores no longer have an actual fabric section, and some have even reduced their once nice scrapbooking aisle.  That was the case with this particular location.  Since I had time to snoop around, I shopped their aisle of sewing notions.  Here are some nice little finds that were quite affordable, totaling only $8.63:

Red Heart crochet thread (since I tend to use a lot of twine) - 125 yds for $2.25 Also available in white.
"Favorite Findings" Buttons (they have many different decorative ones!)  - $1.97
Gems - $1.47  (I think gems were located here because of the other supplies for making hair bows)
White satin Offray ribbon (18 feet) - $1.97
plus Sticky notes (from the office supply area) - $.97

If you are a scrapper who uses a lot of twine, I would recommend buying crochet thread.  Not only is it a spectacular buy (for 125 yards!) but it can come in many colors.  Wrap items on your page, use on tags, tie in your buttons -- this will be put in good use and it will last a long time!

The thought bubbles sticky notes will be fun to use for journaling, since I don't have a similar stamp.  Can't beat the price!  The office section also has bright color paperclips - traditional size and the round shaped.  I got some of these on a previous trip -- another awesome deal if you use a lot of these as embellishments on pages or cards.

I would have purchased more ribbon, but there were out of stock on many this visit.  Walmart is the only store I know of that carries very narrow grosgrain ribbon in different colors for such a low price. This time I picked up a silkier white ribbon for some of my Mother's Day cards I am finishing this weekend.  Walmart typically doesn't have loads of ribbon like a Michaels would have, but they have many different patterns that I don't usually see elsewhere.

Next time you are in Walmart, check out the sewing section for some scrapbook supplies at competitive prices!

Scrapbook Process: The Key is in the Toolbox

Couldn't wait to do a layout for our new home! We had been looking and saving and debating for almost two years until the dream finally came true last August!

For this layout, I wanted to include a wonderful stamped image I received from a Crop N Chat girlfriend (see bottom right corner) and use items that I already had without buying anything except for the title images. I went through my stash and found a matching frame and then rummaged in my toolbox (not a scrapping toolbox -- the one where my hammer is!) and found an old key ring and some little luggage keys. I thought the keys made a subtle, but fun addition to the page.

So don't pass up a look in the toolbox for scrapping inspiration!