Quick and easy cards using up scraps!

I often watch crafting videos in the evening, especially when Doug's on lates, and I'm waiting for him to finish. Lately, one of my favourites to watch has been Jennifer McGuire.
She does so many videos, and shows lots of great techniques, as well as showcasing products. Obviously not everything is to my taste, but I've picked up lots of techniques I've not thought of, or tried before. She is great at coming up with ways to make more of your stash, and to use things in different ways. She's also often to be seen cutting up her stamps to switch them around, which I love, lol.
This technique, and I've linked to two of her videos doing it HERE, and HERE, makes great use of your card scraps. And we all have loads of those- I know I never seem to have the right size or colour scrap to use up, and end up creating more.

What you do is cut them up into strips, and use them to create panels for your cards.
 Now, I did mine as she did in one of the videos, just cutting random width strips with my mini guillotine. You can of course cut them all the same width if you prefer, and she shows one way to do that using your paper shredder, if you have a strip cut one.
 I cut up black, grey, white and blue, and included some glitter card strips as well.


She also recommends using copy paper to stick the strips onto, as that will not make the panel too thick.
I covered a strip of copy paper with double sided adhesive sheet- you could just put strips of dst onto it, or tape runner.
Then just start laying your paper strips, either in a regular pattern, or just random. She also did them on a diagonal, so you don't have to be extra careful to keep them all vertical.

The finished panel with all the ends cut off. I've made mine to fit a C5 card base, which is roughly 5⅞ x 4⅛. (15x10.5cm).



I trimmed it down afterwards to about 2½" wide, as that seemed more to scale.

The Happy Birthday die is from Poppy Dies, called Jumbled Happy Birthday.

The next one I cut some copy paper into an oblong, big enough to accommodate a large Stitched Star die, and I think I picked up that set in The Works.


This one used black and blue strips.


I die cut the star, and also a few small ones with the smallest star in the set, as well as the sentiment.

Same base card size, C5.


It also occurs to me that this technique would be great for creating cards for men. 


I went back to the black, white & grey mix for this one, and this time die cut a large heart from it, and a sentiment.

The banner is cut from one of the grey pieces, still not sure if it was the right choice though. I might yet change that.
 Also cut a small heart from the smallest die in the set.


You could also do this using patterned paper strips instead of cardstock, but I'd definitely say use either card or paper, not a mix, as you will get a very uneven finish if you do mix them.
If you don't have copy paper, you could use oddments of patterned papers/ ones you don't like , for the backing too.

Made a birthday card, I die cut the sentiment twice from black cardstock, and once from blue glitter card.  I also added a couple of cardstock strips down the sides of the panel.

 I had no plans to do any Christmas cards, but the thought occurred to me, so I gave it a try. For this I cut strips in Green, Gold & red shades, including some glitter strips again.
 I have a Memory Box Merry Christmas 'channel' die, and I thought this strip would back it nicely.

This is how the die cuts out- well almost. It does actually leave the ends attached at both ends of the words, which you need to trim off. Odd, but that's how it is.
 Occurs to me that this die cut would make a great shaker card too, but that's for another time.






I added the die cut panel onto the card front with some foam tape, and added a peel off star border top and bottom.
So this would make some great quick Christmas cards, that look more trouble than they were, and uses up stash! What's not to like?

So I did a second. This time I cut an oblong scalloped shape with a Presscut die set, and the greeting is an Elizabeth Crafts die, cut 3 times from white cardstock, then once from gold and layered up for dimension.



Another great tip from Jennifer- if you use adhesive sheets, keep the backing paper that you peel off to reveal the sticky side.
 It's great for using under anything you want to apply glue to, as the glue won't stick to the release sheet.