Enjoying your Christmas... packaging??

Did you end up with a lot of this  just recently? (Nope, it's not invisible, just clear plastic.) You know the kind, right? You probably had to wrestle more than one holiday gift out of something like it.

Now what do you do with it? Do you look for a recycling symbol? Awesome! Only some of these have one, tho', and it usually turns out to be some type that most recycling centers won't accept. So what are some ways you might reuse the stuff?

Take another look -- here's a whole variety of examples:

Well, aside from that potential Tic-Tac-Toe board in the middle -- you could even color in the lines and make your own fun playing pieces -- hmm... What about making use of it as protective material? Here's one such case:

These junk mail snippets are now encased behind the plastic and the whole "sandwich" is framed so that it's all one piece. Now it's less likely to rip or be damaged if it gets a little wet. (BTW, those blue circles were die-cut from laundry bottle plastic in our workshop with Susi D. of Artsy Fartsy Jewelry! Having other beads and jewelry findings around helps when inspiration strikes. :^)

Other thoughts:

- use concave shapes as a palette for mixing paint colors

- use flat pieces to make "windows" within cards or scrapbook layouts

- back convex shapes with something to close them off and you have a container you can fill -- a compartment for your scrapbook design, maybe, or what about a mini snowglobe?

If you have other ideas for using this stuff, please post and share them with us!

A Guest Blogger Visits SCRAP-DC

Cece, age 8, came to our store/office/studio over Thanksgiving weekend, and made a collage with materials purchased here. Check it out!

Here are her musings on the subject:
I think Scrap-DC is helpful to the earth because they reuse recycled materials that other people wouldn't necessarily know how to use. Karen knows how to reuse the materials in a good and creative way. Scrap-DC makes stuff look cool instead of like an empty soda can lying on the ground.


For my art that I made at Scrap-DC, I used wood, styrofoam, a cork, yarn, glue, plastic tubes, Formica, a cup, a cap, and googley eyes. I felt happy when I was making the art because I knew that I was also helping the environment.


Did y'all know that we stock and sell all of the items above?? And then some! YOU can come in and make something this cool, too, and for very little money. Cece, you really get what we're about and what we're hoping to teach! This collage makes awesome use of some materials that I think you could even reconfigure later if you want to. As it is, the colors and composition make the piece interesting from different points of view (and so, thanks for showing us a couple different angles). I'm so pleased that this beautiful work resulted from your visit to our space, and we hope you'll come back soon!


Love,
Karen