Breathing new life into your stash

Sometimes I have a few embellishments that I can use, but I don't have the right paper. Right now, Michaels has a slew of new papers that are really cute. They are on sale 10/$10. While I hate paying a buck for a sheet of paper, if it is really pretty, I will buy it for the background. Today I found wood paper with silver between the pieces of wood. It looks a bit like a dock, so I bought some for background paper. I know I have other sheets at home that will match it. They also had clear flamingo paper I might need too. I think sometimes you just need that extra something to put together a layout you will love.

Check out the videos on YouTube for creating your own embellishments. If you have a circle punch, butterfly or banner punch, half the work is done for you. One of the YouTubers also has a video that teaches you how to make your own tiny word stickers too.

I found that I use my Cricut much more often now that I have it set up and ready to use...no pulling it out, plugging it in, clearing off a spot. I use mine with SCAL so it has to be hooked up to the computer - I re-arranged my scrapbook spot to make it super easy to use and that's fixed the 'I don't have an embellishment that works' issue because I can almost always find an image to cut

I haven't read through all the replies, so some of this may duplicate, but here's my 2 cents:

Precutting on your Silhouette is great, and when I have extra paper, I always try to fill it with a few generic shapes like tags, corners , hearts, or other basics, but more intricate cuts don't store well. Sometimes I'll do 3 or 4 frames at a time and then slide them between some typing paper, but super-intricate edges like that torn notebook or postage edges get really caught on each other.

Snap Click Supply has a $1 Wednesday sale, and they do 50% off all digi items on a fairly regular basis.  They have a lot of the good name brands (Echo Park, Carta Bella, Bobunny, Fancy Pants, etc.), and I buy stuff there fairly regularly because sometimes I can't find it, I want to resize the embellishments, or I want multiples of something.  I also sometimes buy a pre-designed digi page on sale that is layers (not a quick-page), and then I print and cut the layers.  Designer Digitals often does .99 pages on the day they release a new layout, and they usually have a ton of elements within the pages that you'll find yourself reusing.  The Daily Digi does a monthy "club" for $7.50 where you get 5-7 kits per months, and they often have bonus alphas/pages thrown in.  (You cannot redownload your purchase after the month is up, though--so you have to be really diligent about backups.)  

If you're doing a lot of digi elements, you can cut them on your Silhouette.  When I make digi die-cuts, I take each layer into my photo-editing software and make two copies--one color, and one that I fill with black.  (If you have a problem selecting what turns black, use a transparent background, then select the transparency and reverse the selection to get the image.) Then I save the file as a png and go into my Sihouette.  The color version is my printable.  The black version I use as an outline to create the cut-lines.  By importing both versions in one file, I know my cut lines are all the exact same size, but I don't have to clean up my trace and cut.  It will almost always only give me the outline shape with no additional pixel-trash.  Then I move my cutlines over my printable and delete/erase the black version.  I do this kind of digi-file work while I'm watching tv, btw, and then cut them all on some night I'm feeling uncreative.

You can use your Pixscan mat with your Silhouette to cut stamped images, too.  

And...I'm picky about my color matching, too, so when in doubt, I precut white and abuse my ink pads.

ETA:  sueg pointed out I mixed up Snap Click/AC Digitals being the same, so I corrected my paragraph and just took AC out.  I shop at both and get both newsletters, so no clue what I was thinking! Sorry if I mixed anyone up!

I breathe new life into my stash by pulling things I bought for a certain purpose and using them, I dress them up. Use old techniques like distressing, tearing, layering, popdotting. I break out my circle coluzzle and make large circles out of my paper for layering. Break out your stickles and nuvo drops.

Die cuts are great to have so I used to sit and cut out a variety all at once. I keep a stash of enamel dots and epoxy arrows and shape, gems and pearls nearby.

Using thickers and letters can breathe updated life into old papers. My stash is so huge that while I love to buy new things I can easily make my stash work by using B sides of paper and using lots of layering of different papers.

When I do a deep clean of my scraproom--which does not take place often, I will combine papers with scraps, related embellies, brads, whatever, from different used collections into new themes. Guess some people might call them kits, but basically they are new groupings of supplies that work together. For example, none of my dgk's play Lacrosse any more, but a lot of the sayings apply to my hockey pages, so I threw those supplies in there. Many of the supplies I bought to scrap camping can now be used for meals on our deck, or walks in our yard.

I find that just going through my stash "breathes life into it" because I see what I have had hidden in tubs and drawers, and next time I am scrapping something related I will be more likely to pull that out.

AC Digital and Snap Click are two different companies. AC Digital has American Crafts (obviously!), Pink Paislee, Heidi Swapp, Project Life, Pebble and Crate Paper. Snap Click has the others you mentioned - Carta Bella, Echo Park, Fancy Pants, Basic Grey and others. I buy from both, depending on what I am looking for.


I import the digital files into my Silhouette, and make them into 'Print and Cut' designs. Mostly I just use the Trace feature to give me a cutting line around the outside edge. I have started doing exactly what you have mentioned here - cutting a full page of various designs every so often, just to have on hand. Even if I am cutting some specific items for a LO, I will fill up the page with other items, so as to not waste paper, and to have spares on hand.

Thanks for correcting me, you're completely right.  I was tired and I guess not thinking straight!  

Since 98% of my stash is old, I find that getting things out and recombining them like grammadee explained is what works best for me. Especially since I used to store all my kits separately. I find that none of those Studio Calico kits inspire me they way they are, but once I take them apart and recombine them with other things, they are much more usable.