Tales From the Junk Bin

Raise your hand if you have a collection of mismatched embellishments, die cuts, labels, tags and other leftovers from the projects you've been working on.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I used to stick them in containers and they'd eventually migrate to a drawer or a shelf somewhere.  Recently, I decided that it might be a better idea to keep them in a tin on my work table.  This is my current (but not only) junk bin.

Today as I was trying to figure out what to work on next, I decided to rummage through the junk bin for some inspiration.  Here's what I pulled out.

Kind of a mismatched bunch, but I was determined to make something from them. The turquoise medallion and the feather* were made with dies I got from a recent order from Spellbinders.  I was just trying out the dies and didn't have anything in mind when I made them, but once I was done, I couldn't just throw them away.  The butterfly is from the Small Things stamp set* and is a leftover from a prior project. The background is from a pile of backgrounds I discovered yesterday when I was clearing out some of my old stash.

I chose 018, 015, 025 and 027 from my Journey Color Burst Pencils* that matched the colors in the medallion and feather to color the butterfly. I thought it needed a little red when I got done so I also did a little blending with some 02.

I'll admit the butterfly came out a bit more colorful than I intended, but I think it goes with the rest of the card.  I thought the medallion didn't quite pop enough by itself so I dug through my box a little more and found a circle I had cut from Summer Days cardstock* with the Journey Circles die set* and put that behind it.

 I lightly inked the edge of the background with Turbo Teal ink*. I also added some trim behind the background, you can see it peeking out on either side. I popped the butterfly and the sentiment up on Journey Foam Squares, then splattered it all with Sparkle silk and Cool Pool silk.  Not bad for a card from the junk bin.

How about you?  What's in your junk bin? 

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