my SCRAP adventure

One rainy Saturday morning, my stepmom and I set out on an art adventure. We drove up to SF to check out a place called SCRAP--an artist/teacher haven full of curious cast-offs and recyclable stuff. It was a smallish warehouse--smaller than I had expected--but full to the ceiling with buttons, fabric scraps, metal doodads, bins of plastic toy parts, etc. To the uncreative eye, it would appear to be total chaos, but each isle had more or less some kind of theme: glass and ceramics on the far end, wood and fabrics in the middle, bigger ticket items in the front by the check out lady.

Most of the items have no price tag or price system. It's just fill a bag and hope the check out lady is feeling kind. And by no means do you just grab handfulls of buttons and then when she asks, "how many?" you just shrug, "i dunno". I think my bag full of buttons cost me $10 alone! But I'll never know because at the end of your bag-stuffing frenzy, she just kind of looks through all your bags, tosses some old bamboo runes in a tortoise shell and goes, "ummm...$32."
My stepmom made out like a bandit only paying $25 for four big bags overflowing with fabric scraps, wooden toy parts, tin cases, old wood spools, glass bottles, blank cardboard books. I know the old wooden spice cabinet was $20 (not because of the price tag, but because the check out lady said so) which means that the rest of my piddly bag (including the offending bag of buttons) came to $12. But not bad considering I probably would've paid $32 for the cabinet/shelf thingie alone. Anyway, I would still totally recommend to weekend visitors or anyone within a 50 mile radius to check this place out.
The photos above and below are some of the things I found there--most of it is just my other collection of odds and ends from etsy to thrift store finds or gifts from friends (Thank you, Kisa, for the burning heart wooden stamp!). Enjoy the eye candy and be inspired!

27 ATCs...whew!

Your Turn
Images by Paper Whimsy and Piddix


Magic Spell
images by Paper Whimsy, Artchix and Piddix


Her Senses
Image by Piddix (main image is public domain)

I've just completed 27 ATCs for my first ever Artfest ATC Book swap. I mass produced 27 completely different pieces of art in the course of 2 days! The swap is due this Friday, and I just sent it off this morning...we'll see if I make the deadline. :) It was fun and waiting til the last minute reminded me of all those late nights spent writing stories or finishing up art projects in college (and high school...and middle school...and elementary school--do you see the pattern?) :) I made six of the ATCs WAY ahead of time...it was just the last 21 I did in two days. It was pretty simple after I got a basic "pattern" down. Each card has a main image of a woman or girl on a funky background (pre-printed scrap paper--I applaud those artists who craft their own backgrounds from scratch!), a butterfly, a torn scrap of vintage sheet music, and a postage stamp-shaped image in the corner. I also added a scrap of funky fiber/yarn/ribbon to one edge, but I took the pictures before I decided to add it, so just use your creative imagination. ;) Here's a few of my favorites (although, I must admit, I was very happy with all of them! It was hard to part with them, but I will get an entire book full of 27 ATCs from other artists around the country (and globe?) who love art and all things ARTFEST.

More Creative Swaps...

These are felt dolls for a doll swap at Alpha Stamps. Images are by Alpha Stamps and Paper Whimsy.
I've signed up for several other art swaps and just wanted to share what I've been creating lately. I have an ATC swap that's due next week which I'm only about 1/3 of the way done with...but that's what late nights and iced caramel lattes are for. I work better under pressure (just a nicer way of saying I'm a big procrastinator). But to be fair to myself, I actually got a lot of the swaps done weeks or even months before they were due. I like having a lot of different projects going on at once. It forces me to be creative every day and it also gives me several choices if one project doesn't happen to "speak" to me at that moment. The only bummer is that I'm sending off original art work, but I get really cool art from other artists in return. And it's good practice for when I make that leap to making art for a living. You just have to let it go.


The following are some of the fan blades I made for a Paper Whimsy swap. The theme was "Valentines by the Sea" and the color theme was Cerulean Blue, Celadon Green, and Coral. I looked up the colors on google image and went from there! (Images by Paper Whimsy)


Here is the finished fan with all of the fan blades from my Valentines by the Sea swap group:

artists from left to right: Joan Lawrence, me, Theresa Martin, Paula Dion, Lennea Trusdell)