Waste not, want not

That used to be a favourite saying of my lovely nan, 'waste not, want not!' and I find that even now I double check everything before throwing it away, just in case I can use it.

Well, with Christmas fast approaching and so many presents to buy, not to mention the food, the decorations, the alcohol (or is that just me?) I thought I'd look at ways to save on the real Christmas essential, scrapping!

I'd bought the gorgeous Christmas sticker range from Authentique. Once you use the stickers though there is still a great deal of background that is, to my mind, still usable.
I started by peeling this off and sticking it to a piece of cardstock (I chose black) then I carefully cut out the parts I wanted to use.

Once I'd done that I set about creating my layout, adding a little of the desert springs range from s.e.i.

Because the photos I was using were quite small I wanted to keep the page quite minimal so that they didn't 'get lost' on the layout.

For my second page I used the same principal but this time used the 'waste' from the Jillibean soup corrugated kraft alphas. This time instead of using plain cardstock I used scraps (in keeping with my intention to be frugal!) and glued these behind the cut outs. I then used the entire thing as my background.

I'd love to see how you make the most of your stash and hope I've inspired you to look at the waste and even the packaging, to see if you can make use of them in your scrapping.

Here are the links to the products I've used:
jillibean soup corrugated alphas
Authentique peaceful stickers
s.e.i. dessert springs
Authentique curiosity papers