Scrapbooking manufactures are making it very easy for scrap bookers to put together paper projects with their lines that contain every desired supply to be as creative as you wish. When you buy patterned paper, you can now buy matching or coordinating cardstock, embellishments, buttons, stickers, die cuts, frames, buttons, rub ons, ribbons, fibers, monograms, chipboard and a variety of other goodies that all coordinate from the same company. You can create beautiful projects and never have to use supplies from a different company.

When I first started Scrapbooking, way back in the olden days, I would have to search through all my supplies to pull together the products that I would need to make a scrapbook layout. The paper, stickers, die cuts and embellishments would all come from different companies since no one company made everything you needed. Scrap bookers and Scrapbooking has evolved so much since then and companies and product designers have made the possibilities endless for us. Now I don’t just buy the sheet of paper I like but I buy all the matching sheets and the most of the other goodies in a collection.

Now with all the variety and selection we have for our supplies, let me ask you this: When you put together a project do you ever use up an entire package of chipboard or sheet of rub ons or an entire sheet of patterned paper? Especially with the latest trend of only using scraps of patterned paper and a little bit of a sticker sheet here or some buttons there, I find that I put my leftover supplies away and usually I don’t use them again because there is always more stuff coming out that I have to have. The partially used products remain unused or even unseen until I go on a purging spree and I wistfully recall how much I loved said product when it came out and then put it in a bag to give away.

Because of this I have been feeling very wasteful lately with my supplies. I decided to challenge myself to use up all the supplies from one Manufacturer’s collection to create my projects until I had no useable scraps left. I was very successful with my first attempt and now have done this a few more times using different collections from different companies.

I limit myself to use only the patterned papers that come with a collection and try to stick with their other embellishments but do not limit my creativity and will mix in other supplies as I go along. Of course there are no rules in Scrapbooking and my only goal is to get some pages done and use up supplies before they become part of my ‘stash’. I enjoy the challenge of finding photos to match the collection I am working with and stepping ‘outside of the box’ with the intended use of the embellishments and making them work for my projects.

The following pages were created with the Creative Imaginations Lush Line(photo page 1). They are posted in the order that I created them. I drew sketches for each layout that show what papers I used and how I used them. Refer to the scans of the layouts for more precise embellishment, title, and journaling and photo placement or create your own designs.
I still have lots of supplies left over from this project and can create pages if I wish. (See photo on page 17)

The sketches here can be used for any other papers and embellishments. I created the last layout shown (page 16) after I drew the sketches to demonstrate how it would look if you flipped the sketch on its side.
I would love for you to take my challenge. Post them in the gallery and post a thread in the Garden Girl chat so we can take a peek at what you did.