Scrap Happy

It's a new year and I'm in the mood to organize and clean! So today I began to clean up my disaster of a studio, but I didn't get very far. People who know me know that I save scraps and just hate to throw away anything that's still useable. While sorting through a pile of scraps that needed to be "filed," I decided to use them up rather than put them away. Since I need several thank-you cards, this served two purposes!

I cut strips from assorted scraps and glued them to a cardstock base (also scrap). A glue stick works best for this as it adheres the entire surface which will be important in the next step. Here's a scan of my glued strips (you can see I almost forgot to scan it first - one strip has already been cut).

This piece is then cut into varying sizes of strips (perpendicular to the original strips) and the strips are then rearranged in rows and adhered to another base piece. Here is the card I made using this as the background layer and adding another scrap strip which I crimped. The oval punch and thank you stamp are from Stampin Up.

And here is another similar card made from other scraps.

I've also been playing with my new Cricut cartridge (Storybook) and had made a few accent cuts to see how they looked. Here is a thank you cut from patterned paper and added to a kraft card stamped with a background stamp and white ink. I added a strip of the same patterned paper punched with a "notebook" border punch.

And the last one is another diecut layered on scrap pieces of cardstock and matching patterned paper. Super simple and quick cards and I made a dent in at least one pile of scraps!

Now, back to sorting and picking up!