There are many times when I feel like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat — when I find myself making something out of nothing.
- Like mealtimes, when it looks like there is nothing to eat in the house, and family and friends drop in unexpectedly – yet somehow what gets to the table looks fabulous. (This happens occasionally.)
- When I need to get ALL the errands run within a short time limit –Â yet somehow I manage to drive the speed limit and still get all the errands done with time to spare.
- When I was teaching art and the project for the kids was all wrong and required an instant, on-your-feet adaptation –Â yet it looked great and was easy to explain.
The list seems endless! These can be very stressful situations.
My Super Power
This making something out of nothing is what I love to do. I love to create things using what I have sitting around the house (often referred to as scraps).
Scrap yarn, scrap fabric, scrap art supplies, scrap odds and ends. Creating something out of what looks like nothing is a muscle which needs exercise. You could say It is a super power that doesn’t require a super suit. Our great-grandparents used this muscle daily during the Great Depression; it was just a part of life.
These days people call it recycling or green living, but it still feels a lot like making something out of nothing.
The Use Your Stash Challenge is a great way to exercise your creative muscles when it comes to using up your stash of supplies. Give yourself some boundaries (would you even wear crocheted shorts?) and create to your heart’s content!
Creative Months
I often allow myself to be really creative and use all my stash on hand, not just my yarn stash. Doing this helps me to create lovely things for our home. Often, during the Christmas rush, I forget to take the time to make things I like for the house I live in. January and February tend to be a nesting time for me as we pull-in and deal with ice and/or snow storms here in Oklahoma.
Scrap afghans keep me warm while I work on them, and the works-in-progress list gets smaller as the stash is used up. This allows me to make room for new yarns and projects.
Ideas to Get You Started
Here are a few of my favorite scrap projects from my archives and some from Way, way back.
Some of these next items could be scrap busting projects if you need ideas. I crocheted or sewed all of these. They weren’t necessarily scrap projects but could easily be Use Your Stash projects. There are a bunch of ideas here that you can pick up and go with.
The items above were created out of small bits and pieces of fabric, beads, and yarn. They can all be created out of stash items.
Use Your Stash Challenge
Can you tell that I am trying to get you to join the Use Your Stash Challenge January 2017? It is an excellent way to use up your bits and pieces.
Talk to you later,
Karen