Scrapbooking table scraps

I have this drawer by 7 gypsies on my side table where I scrap. In it I plunk every little bit that I am too lazy to find the original packaging for and put away. I also keep a spaghetti holder in my space in which I put every cute bottom border that I trim off but don't use. For the most part they just sit there and stare at me while I scrap, but occasionally I get serious and scrap these scraps.

Here's an example of one I did long ago:

I did this page long ago for a challenge for the Simple Scrapbooks blog to scrap bits on my space. I tend to be pretty meticulous and orderly, but I loved this look, and it inspired me to be a bit more random in my product choices every now and then. (Funny that this layout was so long ago, but my style is definitely showing itself here: cutouts from the photo, strips of stuff, and overlapping the photo.)

Recently I did something similar. Here's the result:

I did this page for The Art + Science of Scrapbooking at Big Picture Classes. The challenge was to pick an embellishment and design the page around it. I had long ago bought the HAPPY--it's my favorite color--but I had never used it, so I pulled it out, selected photos, then found happy paper to go with. The products were either in my tray or my new embellishments basket I keep near me. In particular, the "summer note" die cut and the "picture perfect" acetate were just sitting right by me, so I put them on the page. Just because they were Happy. Here's a detail:

Soon after, I also scrapped some of those thin strips on a layout. A LOT of those thin strips. Here's the page:

I used a sketch from Simple Scrapper for this. Here it is in process when I was working on it at Archiver's with some girlfriends last weekend:

I pulled every strip I had in a leftover Studio Calico kit and lay them down in a sunburst. I didn't think to make them all matchy-matchy--I just used what I had. Then I glued them down and trimmed the edges. The hardest part was not spelling a swear word with the strip that spelled "Hello." (Heh.) Here's some details:

This was pretty funny: I needed a small grid card for journaling, but I'd left my Project Life kit at home. My friend Janet had a mini-set of religious Project Life cards, so I looked through them and found this one that said "Blessed." Since I DO feel blessed now that Derick has been smoking all summer, it was a perfect match for the page, and it made me laugh to boot. Another instance of scrapping what's on hand.

So this is how I scrap what's lying around on my table! The look on my pages is a bit more eclectic than I normally produce, but I like it, it uses up supplies I have, and it's fun. Thank you for looking at my process!