What about this?

There is a door off of my family room that always remains shut to guests and is opened very cautiously by family members. It’s only a wooden barrier, but it separates chaos from order. Behind the door is my craft closet. I’m a crafter in pursuit of finding my craft and along the way I have amassed a lot of stuff. But the primary reason for the mess is that I keep everything. I see potential uses for everything beyond their intended uses. Just ask my husband about the cracked plastic laundry hamper that I would not let him throw away. He’s used to my pack rat ways, but the expression on his face when I said, “Why can’t we cut the bottom off and use it as a tomato cage?” told me that I had come up with my most ridiculous idea yet. I beg to disagree! I ‘m just a creative person who sees endless possibilities in things.

Here’s another example. What usually happens to photographs that are misprinted for one reason or another? Most people throw them away, but, of course, I do not. I save them for reasons unknown. Then one day I was making a birthday card for a neighbor and thought wouldn’t it be great if I cut up these colorful, but imperfect photos, and make a design with them? I took out scissors and paper punches and became engrossed with the bits of color and shapes as my design came into being.

Later as I stood back to admire the photo mosaic flower I had created, I thought of other materials that could be recycled in this manner. What about using black and white photos or glossy magazine photos? How about utilizing magazine articles with different font sizes for value density effects? What if I folded the photos for texture . . . . here I go again!

If you are wondering about the fate of the plastic laundry hamper, I sadly conceded to tossing it out.