Making the most of your kits, part two!

Good morning, ladies! As promised here is part two of my two-part series on making the most out of your kits.

Hold out until the very end! Got a bunch of paper scraps leftover? Don't throw them out. If you don't have any uncut pieces of patterned paper or cardstock left over, find a matching or neutral sheet of cardstock and use those scraps to make a layout. Scraps also make great card embellishments. Even small pieces can become great page elements, like the strips I used in my layout “Backseat Boys”.

Not a theme gal? I'm not big on themed papers so it's not unusual for me to use them in a non-themed way. With last October's Halloween-themed "Bewitched" kit, I created this layout using a photo of me and my then-baby-Ryan.

Layers, layers, layers. Layers add tons of visual appeal and make it look like you put a ton of effort into your project, but they're so easy to create. Layers are not only a great way to use embellies and paper scraps, but a great way to stretch your supply. On this layout, for example, I used only a small piece of the black grid pp, allowing  me to save the rest for another (or several other) projects.

It's all in the packaging. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the packaging is almost as yummy as the items inside? I also like the cut-off strips at the bottoms of papers. Even if they have the manufacturer's name and other info on them, often the middle of the strip is blank and it coordinates with the paper! The negative shapes from sticker sheets can make great embellies, too, like in this layout. Here, the "wave" sticker strip above the photo is what was left after using a scalloped sticker strip. And the blue strip below the photo was cut off of a sheet of pp.

Keep on keepin' on. The last tip I'd like to share is a simple method that helps me get several projects out of a kit -- just keep going! If there are kit parts left, then something can be made from them. I challenges myself each month to use as much of the kit as possible. And along with the other kit-stretching tips I've shared, the result is five, six or even more projects from a single kit.

I hope you enjoyed these ideas. You can find last month's idea's here. Please share *your* ideas on how to stretch your kits. I'd love to hear what you do!

Comments

[AmyBug]

Great ideas, Kimberly. I love taking the tiniest of scraps & making the quadrant cards. You can make a bunch of those (with added cardstock bases) with just small strips of paper left.