Here’s what Kimberly sent me—lots of small pieces:

The bag contained small pieces of papers and fabrics, none larger than a quarter sheet. Also, some fibers, a few small images, and some tiny heart-shaped charms.

So, what would you make from this bag of stuff? How would you sort it into related pieces? What items are missing to complete the project you envision?

I immediately sorted the pile of scraps into three color-themed groups: white and gold, pink and black, and orange and yellow. Very often, color is what speaks to me first, and is what I use to organize when presented with lots of pieces. Once sorted, I saw three different sheets of background papers, each needing a slightly different approach.

Now, you’ve all read my article on making serendipity squares, right? I’m going to use a some variations of this technique to create full sheets of paper for later use.

Just Plain Glue

The first sheet is going to use the white and gold pieces. I augmented this pile with a piece or two from my own scrap bin, which is usually overflowing with bits from previous projects.

The pieces were all sort of square and straight. I started tearing to give some irregular edges. I also removed some layers of the thicker scraps, like the business card. I was able to just peel the printed layer off, and toss the remainder of the card. No sense adding bulk we don’t need.

Next, some gluing. I used a sheet of lightweight cover stock as a background for this, in white. Very often, I’ll choose a background paper that’s sort of color coordinated with my pieces, or that will add to the composition somehow.

I glued pieces to the background randomly with a glue stick. Sometimes they overlapped a bit. I wasn’t too worried about covering every bit of the background paper.

Now, a little stamping. I used a couple of script stamps, some brown ink, and gold embossing powder. I sort of aimed for the bare white spots of background showing through, but not too carefully.

When the embossing powder was cool, I decided the white of the background paper was still a little stark, so I toned it down with a little chalk ink, rubbing it on the paper randomly.

There was one white paper that was sort of whispy and holey—I left that to glue on last. Very often, alternating gluing and stamping works best with this technique, to give the paper a more interesting lost and found effect.

Standing back from the sheet so far, it looked a little disconnected—like a bunch of pieces glued down rather than one whole sheet of interesting paper. To help blend a bit more, I spattered a bit of white acrylic over the whole sheet. This gave it more visual interest, and helped break up any areas that were still solid.

One last addition to blend it all together: random dots of gold glitter glue. Glitter glue gets a bad rap as an art material because so many people use it badly. I like it to add just a bit of sparkle her and there.

The finished result:

Gel Medium and Paint

The next pile was pink and black, and had some ribbon in it. Glue stick won’t really do the trick here, so I decided to use some gel medium.

For this paper, I used a heavier background: watercolor paper. This was both mostly an adjustment for the wet media. Paint needs more support than glue.

The first layer of papers was from my own pile of scraps: some Chinese newspaper, and pink construction paper. I just randomly applied it into a layer of gel medium.

I didn’t have a lot of pink scraps around, so I went ahead and used a bit of paint to tone the background down. I’m a no frills sort of painter: I just squirt a bit onto the paper, and move it around with a big brush.

All that solid pink sort of made my teeth hurt, so I stamped some fern leaves over itwith black ink. I set the ink with a heat gun to keep it from smearing.

Next, I applied some scraps with gel medium. I also cut up the gingham ribbon and applied it to the paper. This takes a bit more gel medium and a little more drying time than paper.

The paler pink scraps really stood out, so I added some pale pink paint splatters to help blend them with the brighter pink background and scraps.

The finished result:

Fusible Webbing and Some Sewing

OK, one more pile: lots of fun prints in orange, yellow, and just a bit of purple. This pile had both paper and fabric in it, and a bunch of fibers and ribbons. This looked very ethnic and freeform to me, so I decided a little freeform sewing was in order.

One of my favorite ways of dealing with scraps of fabric is to use fusible webbing to hold it in place while I work with it. I used some scraps of Steam a Seam for this project: it has a bit of temporary adhesive to keep things in place while you’re working, and then can be ironed down for permanent placement.

First, I lined up all my bits and pieces on the Steam a Seam, and trimmed around them.

Next, I fused the adhesive to the papers and fabrics. I know this stuff is designed for quilting, but paper likes it just as well as fabric.

Once the Steam a Seam is fused to the pieces, the backing paper can be removed. It now has just a tiny bit of temporary adhesive to hold it in place while I’m playing with placement.

I cut papers and fabrics into random pieces, and arranged them on a sheet of bright yellow paper.

When I was happy with the placement, I anchored everything down with an iron. I could have stopped right there—the paper is perfectly usable once everything is fused down, and no further gluing is required. Simple, eh?

Now, I’ve been sewing since I was big enough to see over the top of a machine table, but my machine doesn’t get much of a workout anymore. Freeform sewing on the occasional sheet of paper is about as far as I get. I whipped the cover off the machine, and it was already threaded up with some bright yellow rayon thread, so I set it for a wide zig-zag stitch, and sewed a few random lines. Then I stitched down all the bits and pieces of fibers and ribbons. Then, just for laughs, I stitched some jute twine onto the paper.

This paper was already pretty colorful, but I couldn’t resist adding a bit more. I dotted the page with purple, green and gold glitter glue.

Here’s the finished result: