Clean Up in Aisle..........

I set out just to do some straightening up of the workspace and decided that it was more than necessary to actually put some of the scraps and bits that were lying around to use rather than just file them away because it was a crazy day at work and I also needed to put my anxiety to rest and create something.   I have a problem with throwing scraps away. It could be punched pieces that I didn't use on a particular project or images that didn't work out, but just about anything becomes fair game and I'm at a stand off with myself about getting rid of it or putting it away.  There is a voice inside of me that says - hey, you have plenty of paper and can duplicate that without a problem, but this voice has a somewhat split-personality and also says - hey, don't throw that away, it still could be useful.  Right now that second voice is having it's way!   

With that in mind, here are a couple of cards that I scrapped together............

I tried something with the background on this and used the striped embossing folder both horizontally and vertically and it came out pretty cool.  Those leaves were for a project I had in mind, but you know what, that's kind of where the project got lost.  I remember sitting down one evening and stamping the leaves and cutting them out, but for one reason or another I never got around to that project and honestly, I can't remember what it was anyway.  I'm sure it'll come to me sometime in the future but I have made a real mental note to write down my idea in a journal or even a post-it note and then I can include that in a clear envelope with the pieces for that project.  That was an organizational technique that I had started using when I was painting and creating ornaments years ago.  The problem that I ran into with that was not using clear bags and one of these days I'll have to get around to rebagging that stuff.  (Oh, and those roses I believe were made from the brown packing paper that comes in my SU orders.)

This next one uses a number of pieces including some more of those leaves along with a stamped image.

I added the VersaMarked leaves to the card base and stamped the Riding Hood Red piece with a stamp from Elements of Style.  The name of the set with the bird image has escaped me for now as I think it was a hostess set.  The peach piece is a leftover from the petal cone box die. 

And I thought I'd add in this last Halloween tag that I created while I was enjoying my day off on Monday.  I had found this cute little witch stamp in the dollar bin at Mike's and the Web and Willows is a Memory Box stamp I picked up this summer which reminded me of our garden and not particularly just Halloween.  I'm not sure you can see the sparkle I added to the web with a glitter pen.  The little spider sticky that I had was a perfect fit for that web.

Something that has been debated for as long as I've been stamping - how small a scrap is too small to keep?  Have you used the layering punches?  Do you save the little tear drop pieces?  Or what about the pinking hearts punches?  You get all those lovely little hearts.  Trash or treasure?

The Paper Players #70 Challenge is Anything Goes (fall theme), so I think I will join in the fun over there.