Scrap Stash Saturday!

It's finally back! Your favorite Scrap Stash Saturday feature is back in FULL FORCE today! For those of you new to my blog, Saturday is the day I BLINDLY pull out 4 different pieces of scrap paper out of my scrap drawer and try to make a card with them. Seriously, I don't cheat. I close my eyes and pull out 4 pieces, and I go with what I pull out. No slipping one back in and re-pulling just cuz you can't see me!! Wait till you see the papers I pulled out this week....yikes!

Here they are, in all their glory!


Which one throws you for a loop (no fair saying "all of them!")? Believe it or not, the one that threw me off the most was the last one I picked....the top center pastel colored stripes! The other three I chose all had the same color intensities to work with, but the taupe and pink pastel stripes, in my eyes, DOES NOT GO with any of the other pieces. It was the hardest to incorporate into the design.

I personally like how the card turned out, but I know some people will not. It is VERY strong, and VERY bold, just given the patterns of the papers. One plaid, one diagonal stripe, one floral, and one manly stripe. It works for me, for some strange reason! I would be happy to get this in the mail from someone, but I know it could be a real turn off for some of you.

I started by choosing the plaid multi-color paper as the main focus of the card. I sewed the paper to a piece of Real Red cardstock to make the red in the paper stand out. For fine detail, I sewed a straight stitch all the way around the perimeter of the card. Next, I cut a medium wide strip of the blue floral paper, and sewed it to the card directly in the center. Whew. That's two of the papers out of the way!

Next, I took the diagonal stripe designer paper and cut it in a rectangle and then matted it with Real Red cardstock as well. Now I had to figure out how to get the muted pastel designer paper worked into the card. It was hard, let me tell you. I tried cutting a strip of the paper and then using my slit punch to make scallops, but b tecause of the boldness of the rest of the papers on the card, the scallops appeared too dainty. So I punched some 1 1/4 in circles out of the muted pastel paper and then cut them in half and glued them to the top and bottom of the diagonal paper to make bigger scallops.

Paper piecing is a great way to use up the extra scraps laying around your desk. I stamped my Hero Arts flower on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock. Then I stamped it again on each of the four different pattered paper pieces I had left. Then I cut two petals from each piece of paper and mounted them on top of the image I had stamped on Very Vanilla cardstock using dimensional tape. After that was done, I cut around each petal so I was left with what appears to be a single, dimensional flower. I used a beautiful red beaded brad as the center of the flower. Because I felt adding one more layer would overwhelm this otherwise busy card, I chose to stamp the sentiment directly onto the diagonal piece of paper instead! Good idea, uh? This baby couldn't take one more thing!

Well, I hope you like what I was able to design for today's Scrap Stash Saturday! It's so fun to be doing this challenge again. This has always been a favorite for me. What about you? Are you going dig into your scrap drawer today and make a card using some unmatched designer paper? It really is easier than you might think. Test your eye today, give it a shot. And if you do, email me a link to your card so I can give you a high 5!!!!

Hugs,
Amy