Do you have a huge amount of decorative scissors? How many are currently in your collection? What are you supposed to do with them now that it almost seems the trend is over?
Here’s the scoop. With scrapbooking, trends come and go. Once it’s over, doesn’t mean it’s always over, and it also doesn’t mean there aren’t still creative ways to use your supplies to their fullest.
If you have as many as I do, you probably have a couple of favorites that you like to use a lot. I know I do. I prefer the deckle edge and the ripple, though I have plenty of really cool and fun edges.
As I’ve said before in past articles, for every dollar spent on a tool, at least one page should be created with said tool. That means if I spent $7.00 on a pair of decorative scissors, it better be used on 7 scrapbook layouts. But what does that say about my other 20 something pairs? I guess I really need to get busy!
But what should I do with all of them? I started really thinking about it, getting inspired by looking at others layouts and by playing around with them a bit. While I was using them as well as browsing how other’s had used them, I began to get new creative ideas for journaling squares, letter blocks, mats, tags, border strips and more. I realized there are so many different elements on some of my scrapbook pages that I can utilize them in many ways.
I figured out another creative idea while I was doing it too. I spend a lot of my time tearing on my layouts. For whatever weird reason, I really like that look. But what about using different pairs of decorative scissors to get that same shabby, layered look? I tried it out and loved the results.
Here are a few creative ways to use these old decorative scissors on your new layouts:
- Use them on tags
- Use them on cards
- Use them as templates for inking (cut a strip of the edge and ink over it.)
- Borders
- Mat a metal embellishment
- Create fun lettering or just an initial on a page
- Use them to cut out paper piecings
- Or use them around die cuts
- Use them to make fancy journaling blocks or lettering blocks
- Use them to clip the corners of layouts, blocks, boxes, photos, etc.
So get those decorative scissors back out, wipe the dust away and have a little fun and be creative!!