Busy Hands Are Happy Hands

Sometimes I just don't have it in me to create something. Yet I feel unbalanced if I'm not doing something creative. During those times, I engage in maintenance-type activities. I do things with materials and supplies that will later make it easier to create something when I'm feeling more up to snuff.

 In the last few days, I cut out vintage images and recycled the magazines they came in. This reduces clutter and makes it easier to sort through types of images. Thus, rather than flipping through dozens of magazines to find the right image, I can look through smaller pools of data until I find a beautiful lady or a mother image or a little girl with a dog.

I got these out of a magazine called Nostalgia. Most of the issues are from the 1970's. The pages are yellowing. The pages of the magazine aren't the slick texture of most magazines. They're more....cardboard-y...more like children's construction paper. I'm not sure if, in their raw state, they'll survive several more decades, so I am scanning the images. With this pile alone, I have scanned 60+ pages. I can now print them out on acid-free paper or take them to a copy center, so I can do photo transfers with them.

I also have amassed strips of watercolor paper. I can't throw them away. So I spent an evening coloring them. I'll distribute them into my color-coded storage system for scraps. The white and boring scraps assume a new identity this way. They suggest a project. I might sew on them or print words on them or stamp images on top. They have new life.

What do you do to wrangle your ephemera and scraps?