Earth Friendly. Paper Love: Leftovers...

Hi everyone! Emily here. :)  I tend to fall on the "green" side of things in my daily life. My rather conservative father likes to call me his "greenie tree-hugger" daughter. I'll take that... ;)  We use things at our house like cloth diapers and re-usable grocery bags, and I'm a bit of a recycling fanatic. There is one area of my life, however, where I am decidedly (and embarassingly) much less green.  What is my big greenie downfall?  You guessed it...scrapbooking.  I love this hobby so much, but I do not love how wasteful it...well, let's be real...how wasteful I am.  Between the plastic packaging that so many products come with and all the extra paper, there isn't much about my scrapbooking that is "green" at all.

I am an 8.5 x 11 scrapper, which means that without fail, there is a lot of extra paper left every time I make a layout.  I have tons and tons of 3.5 inch wide paper scraps leftover from where I cut an 8.5 x 11 inch background out of a 12 x 12 piece of patterned paper.  Today I just wanted to share some quick and easy ways to use up all those paper "extras" that are left behind after you have finished creating.

First, I made a layout using some great Ormolu product. :)

I was left with the standard strip of green, a bunch of yellow, and even more orange. I figured with Halloween around the corner, I could use the extras to make a couple of Halloween projects... :)

Some other ideas?  Cupcake toppers, punched garland, toothpick flags, other handmade embellishments for your pages...

And finally, my favorite way to use up scraps? Give them to the kids!! This isn't using exactly the same papers from my layout, but it is a great way to use scraps...and my daughter loved it!

I'd love to hear some of your suggestions for being a green scrapper and using scraps! Have a great weekend!

Ormolu products used:
2-Day Hooray Fabric Swatches
Letter and Line Chevron Package Tags
Line and Letter Button Embellishments
Write-on Paperchain
2-Day Hooray Dots 'n Spots
Blank Packaging Tags (Kraft)
Flora Embellishments (Vignette)

Comments

[melanie]

Oh, this is so adorable, such sweet photos! I'm an 8x11 scrapper too and have the same 'wasteful' problem... as green as I try to be in other aspects of my life, I definitely fall short in that area. Great ideas, and cute projects Em!

[Steph H]

Such good ideas, Em! I am especially looking forward to using my scraps for art projects with AJ!

[Abbeyviolet]

I tend to collect all those little edge/barcode strips in a bucket on my desk as well as trimmings and use them as decorative edges or even matting on future layouts. They are great for making pennants/banners too.

[Monika Wright]

I'm a scrap hoarder, too, and sometimes find that I make some of my most favorite things from them!

[Pam]

I love this post Emily! Cute layout (and baby!), cards, and little girl:)