Today we’re wrapping up my tips and tricks for using up a whole 6×6 paper pad in 1 go. If you missed the Dig It Out or Use It Up Hop, click here to start from the beginning. If you missed the previous follow ups explaining my process click here for #1 and here for #2.

OK, onto what you all *really* wanted to know. What the heck do I do with those weird pieces of paper that you look at and immediately think there is no way I can use that on an A2 card. I’m here to prove you can! Let’s start with this piece of paper (which I actually remembered to take a picture of before chopping it up), along with pics of the cards made from the 2 identical sheets.

Whoa! Right??? And here was my trick:

I dug through my stash of old Spellbinders Label dies and landed on Labels 25. With a little trimming I was able to fit the sentiment on an A2 card on top of cardstock embossed with the Petite Spot embossing folder from Die’sire. The bottom half was trimmed to 5.25″ which removed the foil border and weird pointy cuts left from the die cutting. I die cut the same label shape from light blue cardstock scraps and used it to make the top half of those cards. The patterned paper was popped up on foam tape while the blue was glued flat showing a tiny line of the red cardstock underneath. I heat embossed a large sentiment from a Creative Stamping magazine freebie and some snowflakes from a MFT set called Hand Lettered Holiday. I love how the hardest paper to use came out so unique and fun!!!

This next one I really had to think about before making the first cut. I wish I had thought to get a picture of the paper before chopping it up but once the plan came to me, I was off to the paper trimmer!

OK, let’s see if I can piece this back together for you. The sheet of paper had the peppermint border around all sides, but had the green Christmas tree image in the bottom right corner. I cut those 2 sheets into quarters, using the tree corner pieces as focal points. Those were layered on red cardstock stamped with the SSS Poinsettia background which has a peppermint like style to it. I heat embossed a sentiment from the Recollections Merry Christmas stamp set, and used another really old foam snowflake embellishment on each layered over a blue cardstock circle and vellum scalloped circle die cut. Then onto the other 6 corners. I paired 2 with cut aparts to make 2 more cards. Since the corners and cut aparts were all square, I used ribbon to fill the empty space on the sides. Then for the final 2 cards I used the last peppermint corners and color coordinating cut aparts matted on cardstock and foil to make this triple square design. All 3 squares were layered over more of the SSS Poinsettia stamped cardstock. The sentiments are from the Hero Arts Holiday Messages and Frames set, which fit nicely in the limited amount of space I had. As simple as the designs are, I am most pleased about this set of cards because of the challenges the paper presented.

After this project, I feel like I could tackle any other paper pad now because I can find ways to creatively use difficult designs. I also feel like I know what to look for when buying paper pads in the future. Cause who are we kidding… we Use It Up so we can buy more, right??? I want to thank you all profusely who had read to this point, or scanned long enough to get the gist. You’ll see in my older posts that I don’t normally write a thesis for each post. 🤣 Let me know if you decide to try using up a 6×6 pad and tell me if you have found other tricks to use those tricky papers!

#digitoutoruseitup