Scrap Stash Ideas

A while back this year, I re-defined how I personally think of scraps for my paper stash.

I am constantly evolving my ideas. Paper scraps used to be all jumbled in a drawer of my storage cart, then some point last year I put the smaller ones in a metal box but the larger ones were still piled in a drawer. At some point earlier this year, I moved the big scraps to a binder in a color organized way. That helped some  and it was nice to sort of see what I had (at least compared to a pile in a drawer, anyway.)

One day though, I thought I could do even better.

So I cut all card stock scraps  that were big enough and sturdy enough to be cards into the standard 4.25x5.5 inches card base size. I then cut all paper scraps that were big enough into card layer size of 4x5.25 inches.  So this is what my card layer collection looked like after it was all done (not pictured, card bases):

(There's over 125 pieces there, but you can't tell because it's not totally spread out.) Much easier to look through and be inspired by things this way, for sure. I even had an idea for a piece that was in there AS I was organizing it and wrote it down on a sticky note and attached it to said piece! I left anything that was smaller than at least this size in the notebook, so there are still a lot of strips of things and smaller pieces, but this is MUCH more organized.  So now whenever I make a cut on a new piece of paper or card stock, I always follow this rule. I feel like it will make it a lot easier, and my friend who comes over to make cards on occasion was pretty excited when she saw my new system, so I must have been right. :)

And since we're on the subject of scraps...One day I saw an example of using some scraps to make a new card layer (sorry, I don't remember where I saw it, or I'd link it), and thought I'd give it a try with some of the strips I had in the notebook.  Over random days, I made these:

I like them, and think they are fun. I made the pink ones one day, and then a few days or weeks (? who knows) later made the red/green ones. So far, I think my favorites are the red and green ones. I love the thickness of the stripes for the basic one with the dots, but the green damask with the darker red seems to have taken on a life of its own and created a new pattern.  I didn't have any reason to use any of these yet, but I do think it's a great way to "scrapbust" and to create a whole new look.  Hopefully I will be inspired to use these for something someday!

What are some ways you manage your usable scraps to keep them from getting overwhelming? Feel free to weigh in below.  I am always looking for other ways to use scraps.