Everyday Garbage

Challenge # 6 - Packaging!!!

2008-02-21T20:29:40+11:00

We're finally back!!!! (and about time we hear you saying!!!! lol) Life is no quieter really so we figured we'd better just get on with things because we've learned that there is no "right time" or "break in the action" so why wait? We're so glad to be back and look forward to sharing our garbage obsession with you all again this year. Thank you first and foremost to the many of you who have continued to wait patiently for us to get our acts together and have kept visiting. It was the encouragement and gentle prodding we received from so many of you that finally gave us all a good shove and a hurry along to get things moving again! So now to business....

First of all, it is with real sadness that we have to say goodbye to our beloved gal Lusi. Her talents have taken her to some great new heights and while we will miss her contribution dearly we are thrilled for her new successes and challenges this year. I'll pass the microphone to Lusi for a moment.....

Hey everyone! Happy New Year wishes to you all! It's been a very happy year for me here so far with some scrapping news that will see me step into a new role working with Scrapbook Creations Magazine this year. I unfortunately though have had to rethink some of my comittments and although i have LOVED the Everyday Garbage challenges, it's time for me to make way for some else to join the team. I wanted to thank you all for your comments about my work whilst being a Garbage Girl and I hope to still participate in challenges from time to time. Well, happy scrapping and don't hesitate to pop by my new blog for a chatsky :) http://lusi-austin.blogspot.com/ Love and blessings, Lus x

So while the lovely Lusi won't be with us each fortnight we sure hope she can drop by now and again to share her work and inspire us and you too!

And because we didn't get a chance to finalise a winner for the last challenge we'll be sending a RAK to each of you who sent us through your ticket layouts. Can you please drop us an email, along with your submission layout and your address and we'll send you a thank you for participating. Everyone's a winner baby!!!! lol

Challenge #5 is indeed packaging. This can be sourced from pretty much anywhere you like, in this day and age virtually everything comes in packaging of some kind. Sadly it's almost inescapable but we'd like to think that through recycling what we can of this packaging onto our layouts and altered items we are reducing landfill even by the smallest amount and it all counts. The kitchen is a great place to look for packaging supplies but even in your scrap stash you can take a moment to look at not only your products but what they are packaged in. A little imagination goes a long way, not to mention some paint, ink and sandpaper.....;)

The first layout is from Cass and she has used some torn strips of corrugated cardboard as a background for her title to add texture and interest.

Alana has used carboard packaging from new toy, mesh packaging from chrissy stocking, a recycled chrissy card, wrapping paper and a film canister as a circle stamp.

Lu has used some gold wrapping paper from inside a box of chocolates as a texture behind the chipboard flower.

Drumroll please.........our guest Garbage Girl for this challenge is Kat!!! YAY!!!! Kat AKA Kylie has been a fan of Garbage right from the beginning and we're so happy to have her on board for this one. Here's a quick intro from the fab Kat herself.....

Hi, I'm Kat.. I'm a wannabe photographer, so no one was very surprised when I got into scrapbooking. Then again, no one is surprised any more when I fall for a new craft; I've jumped between comics, spray paint art, and about a million other things, too. I came to scrapping after my bestie, Peta, introduced me to card making, and have been a devoted paper addict ever since. Because I don't have kids, I tend to scrap the family stories, and about myself, so go a little mental with the journaling. I'm loving using garbage lately, because it means looking at everything in a new way. Cost aside, it's more fun to look back at a page and say 'I made that embellishment', or 'I found that' rather than saying 'I bought that'. It gives a little back story to the page itself. And hacking up clothes to use is great therapy on a bad day, too!

Below Kat has used the transfer plastic left-over from a pack of rub-ons as it still shows the clear pattern of the rub-on she had used from another project. Excellent recycling!!!

If you'd like to join in and be in the running for a random RAK then link your layout location in the comments section and we'll also add them to a slide banner during the course of the next couple of weeks as they come in.

We hope we've gotten your year of recycling dangerously off to a great start and that you'll find inspiration from your packaging! We can't wait to see everyone's takes - happy scrapping!

We're not dead, just floating....

2008-02-17T23:48:47+11:00

In the words of the very fabulous P!NK, we're not dead, just floating......lately has seen the demise or stall of quite a few of our fabulous challenge blogs around the place. Life is busy, people are pressured and schedules are hectic and I know that sometimes you have to say enough is enough and let some things slide. That's pretty much what we've done here at Everyday Garbage up until now..........

A new year brings new challenges and new rewards for us. People coming, people going but as the famous song goes "the garbage (song) remains the same". While it's all really just paper and glue at the end of the day we all love what we do here and love what you guys do too, so this week will bring the resurrection of Everyday Garbage, along with the news of a departure, a very talented new guest contributor and the reinforcement of our dearest belief that we're all here for a good time, not a long time so have fun while you are at it!!!!! Garbage on your layouts does come at a price, it won't last forever, won't be archival safe or acid free most of the time and it's generally accepted that using "found" objects on your layouts and projects will lessen their lifespan but as we've just said, it's for a good time not a long time so have fun while you can, let your creativity run wild and create something beautiful right now, for this moment. Hey, if you want it to last forever then get a Kodak moment for goodness sake!!!! Take a pic of your creation that will probably survive it so if anyone wants to know you can say "Yeah, Ma played with garbage and it rocked!!!!!" lol

Hopefully life is settling back into comfortable routine for everyone and we hope there are still scrappers out there hungry for some inspiration and lusting for some creative challenges.

To get everyone in the mood for a whole new year of Everyday Garbage, we'll let you in on the secret of our very first challenge for the year - PACKAGING!!!! Now nobody can say they don't have this anywhere - it comes in a million forms and shapes in your home, from just about everything you buy. Christmas left us inundated with little wire thingies and plastic whatchamacallits and those who are true Garbage Girls will have stashed them for future use we're sure!!!

So have a thinky, look high, look low, look everywhere, look in the RUBBISH BIN!!!!! We'll post our examples of packaged love on Tuesday 19th February 2008 and in the meantime start looking at your garbage in a whole new light. Think twice before you throw the wrapping, stop a second before you ditch the packet, wait a moment before you scrunch up that cardboard. Packaging is everywhere, wrapped around everything and just waiting for you to make something beautiful with it!!!!

See you Tuesday - we've missed you all and can't wait to play with some garbage again with you all!!!!

Finally back with Challenge #5 - Tickets!

2007-12-04T07:37:13+11:00

Okay well we've been away for a VERY extended break - longer than anticipated and life is still throwing those curve balls at us!!! lol Some days I wonder if it ever stops! Because there doesn't seem to be a break in the rush of life right now we thought we should get back onto this even though we're sure that for most of you this has become a crazy time of year too. But like those who blog without obligation, this is a challenge blog without obligation - do it for fun, do it if you've got the time or inclination, otherwise let it slide til you do have time or motivation - just paper and glue gals so make sure it's for fun if you do it!

We're down a couple of contributors this fortnight but wow have Cass, Lusi and Alana sure made up for it with some great inspiration for you using tickets.

Lusi has done an amazing job with her "Thankful Book" incorporating airline tickets and other various tickets and a big thanks to Emily Falconbridge for being the source of Lusi's inspiration for this great idea, especially good for holidays or travels.

Cass has created this gorgeous layout with the simplicity of an "admit one" ticket - if you are a real hoarder you may have these from shows, carnivals, flea markets etc, or you can get them from most newsagencies if you absolutely have to have them! They make a funky addition to your layouts, especially kids/teens or sporting events.

Alana has used a show ticket which she has then used correction tape to cover the words and dymo labelling over that. If you like the idea of using tickets but feel they won't fit into your layout, colour scheme etc then this is a great way to incorporate them without making it as obvious but it all still counts!

Our very best wishes go to our lovely friend Jilly - thinking of you as you enjoy your extended stay in the Republic of The Couch! The champers is still chilling for you babe!

We will be putting up a slideshow from our last challenge shortly and deciding on a winner.

At the moment we're going to leave this challenge open-ended as we come up to Christmas as so many people are busy, planning holidays, juggling children etc so we know that time is precious in terms of your scrapping. Depending on response we'll give it two weeks to see how everyone is going - that's the Tuesday before Christmas - 18th December but nothing hard and fast here - we'll all see how we go. Email your layouts/projects to us via the link in the sidebar or link to your blog in the comments section and we'll get them up on a slide once we have a few in.

Thank you for sticking around during what's been a crazy time for a lot of us and I suspect a lot of you as well! We hope to be back full force with plenty of guest Garbage in the New Year and remember that if you have a suggestion for a theme for Everyday Garbage then we'd love to hear that too! If we choose your theme then you get to be the guest garbage girl for that fortnight.

Take care and take it easy in the run up to the holidays - we're looking forward to seeing everyone's fab ticket work!

Firstly an apology

2007-11-13T22:36:59+11:00

To everyone who has entered our last challenge, I do have your emails and layouts on file so they are still with me.

For those who don't know, I'm gettig married in a week and a half and Cass is my "best chick" (aka matron of honour) and unfortunately the preparation (as my other half and I only decided to get married five weeks ago) has been a little crazy to say the least! One of our contributors is out of action with health issues and we are all basically run off our feet at the moment which means Everyday Garbage has not been well attended to by us in the last fortnight.

We would like to apologise for not being on top of things here and hope you all understand that sometimes life does get in the way and no matter how much we love scrapping, sometimes it has to take a backseat to the other issues going on in our lives. We do this blog for fun and we don't want it to become something that causes stress or worry for any of us.

To that end, we've decided it is best to have a small hiatus for two weeks until the wedding is out of the way, health is improved and life (hopefully) settles down a bit for us. We'll choose a winner from our last challenge during that break time and return on Tuesday 27 November, bright eyed and bushy tailed, to announce the winner of our last challenge and to post up our takes on our next challenge.

We did however want to give you an early heads up on our next challenge, so that you can make a start if you want to while we're away. Our next challenge will be "tickets" - they can be from anything, the bus, a concert, the number machine at the deli, anything you need a ticket for is fair game.

Thank you again to everyone who has come by, probably a little bewildered at what's happened to us but we wanted an opportunity to explain and to let you know what's going on in our lives so that hopefully you will understand why we've decided to put the next challenge on hold. I'm very much looking forward to the wedding but I'll be very grateful to get back to the far less hectic world of paper and glue once it's over!!! lol

Have a great couple of weeks. We can't wait to get back into the swing of things and we hope to see you all back here then.

Cheers, Lu, Cass, Lusi, Jill and Alana

Challenge #4 - In The Garage/Hubby Stuff

2007-10-30T18:10:00+11:00

Wow challenge #4 already!!!! This fortnight our challenge is to use things found in your garage or raided from your hubby (don't flame us for making assumptions but we figure most of you will have at least one or the other, or both! lol). It can be anything at all that you've found, recycled, picked up, pocketed, borrowed or pilfered!!! And for those who aren't regular players, you don't need to have a whole layout of garbage, even one or two items is fine with us. It's the fact that you've taken time to incorporate something you normally wouldn't on a project and you've broadened your scrapping horizons even that little bit.

So to kick us off for this week here's our Garage/Hubby stuff:

Alana has used a galvenised tin planter box, spray paint and house paint.

Lusi has used sandpaper, a videograph sticker from old VCR packaging, bubble wrap and pull-rings from empty cans.

Cass has used plasterer's mesh tape, silver electrical tape, metal washers, a metal bracing plate and a fan grill from a computer.

(apologies for the not-so-good pic - Cass's layout and Lu's layouts are both quite heavy and textured and thus wouldn't scan and didn't want to photograph well either!!!)

Lu has used coloured wire sheathing, old computer RAM sticks, an old CD, plastic cable ties, a triangular piece of metal of some computer-type thing, sheet of labels for computer parts storage. (can you tell I don't have a garage but I do have a super-geek soon-to-be hubby?!?!?)

This was certainly a fun challenge for us, lots of inspiration and interesting bits and pieces to be found and I think some of our menfolk have taken to hiding their work/hobby materials from us since we began this challenge for fear that anything not nailed down (and some things that were!!!) will be made off with for the benefit of our scrapping!!! lol

We hope that you've found some inspiration in what we've come up with and I know that for some of you the mojo is gearing up already, just imagining what you can find, forage or pilfer!!! We can't wait to see what everyone does for this challenge and it's sure to be a fun one.

You can either email us your challenge or post a link to your blog/gallery in the comments section and we'll add them to our slide show. There will be a RAK for our fave take and entries need to be up by midnight AEDST on Sunday 11th November 2007 (far out where is the year going?!?!?). The winner of Challenge #3 is Julie with her fantastic "Not That Simple" layout. We loved this one for Julie's great collage effect use of the contents of her handbag and what it told us about her and her life right now. Congrats Julie - don't forget to email us your addy so we can send you your RAK.

Jilly will be sitting this one out but hopefully she'll be back for our next challenge. We'll also be introducing an exciting new guest Garbage Girl to share her fab work with everyone.

Thanks for stopping by and having a look and thank you to everyone who has supported the EDG blog since we began. We hope you're having fun exploring your garbage and can't thank you all enough for sharing your fabulous work with us!

Hmmmmmmmmm

2007-10-29T09:38:35+11:00

OK so this is a bit of a hint-a-roo. Who uses these in your family???? where would you find them???? what would you do with them???????

Put your thinking caps on girls....I LOVE this bits, just make sure they aren't need for something vital before you stael em' !!!! I have made that mistake before...lots of trouble let me tell you...lol

Hint, hint.....

2007-10-28T19:19:12+11:00

Now just to throw you creative girls off the scent a bit, you can find these in lots of different places but you'll probably need to wait for tomorrow's pic hint to narrow it down for you. Know anybody handy?

Challenge #3 layouts and Challenge #2 winner!

2007-10-22T07:53:05+10:00

In the words of Daphne from Scooby Doo.."wowee cazowee!!!!" Lovin' your takes on our handbag challenge so far you clever chickies!!!! It's also nice to see other people keep their handbags as messy as ours!!! lol If you're not ready to take your everyday garbage to the extreme you can always incorporate just one item or element from your handbag. We understand that not everyone scraps the same way so even if you only use notepad paper you keep in your handbag, or a receipt or ticket you have somewhere, or a wrapper from something, it all still counts! We are all about equal opportunity here folks - over the top or just one item from the handbag, we don't care - we love your work all the same! Looking forward to seeing more of your handbag creations but have a look at what we've got so far! Great job girls!!!

Firstly a quick apology for being late with the winner of the last challenge. A very busy time is being had by all and we'll do our best to make sure we're a little quicker next time!!!

We totally loved Kirsty's take on our last challenge! Kirsty if you can email us your address we'll get a RAK out to you in the post asap!

Challenge #3 - In Your Handbag

2007-10-16T10:33:28+10:00

New fortnight, new challenge and our very first guest Garbage Girl! This fortnight we're challenging you to have a rummage around your handbag and come up with some creative gold. If you're not a handbag type then your wallet, purse or even a nappy bag if you have to cart one of those around everywhere you go will do. Here are our takes on our "In Your Handbag" challenge.

Lu - used paper measuring tape from Ikea, broken butterfly chipboard from my purse, cut out round flowers from card of bobby pins, barcode from a supermarket petrol voucher, appointment card. pink bling squares from a broken item of jewellery

Alana has used a pencil, note-book and clothing label

Jill has altered a lipstick and compact from her handbag

Cass has used a receipt, lipstick to cover the chipboard, a drinking straw and a ballpoint pen and notepad paper.

Cass has also created this v.cute noodle box using beads from a broken necklace and a broken keyring (plus some square bling she stole from MY handbag! - super easy to do and would make great birthday boxes or you could Chrissy it up with red and green colours!

And now ...... DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!!.......introducing our very first guest Garbage Girl - Brigitte!!!!! We're so thrilled to have Brigitte on board for this challenge and for the amazing job she has done.

The very talented Brigitte has used notepaper, a pencil (not for writing but the actual pencil!), an envelope, a hair elastic and lipstick.

Brigitte has also altered a mini tin she uses as an emergency kit that holds a nail file, headache tablets and a band aid. What a terrific idea and very cute as well!

Hi ! I'm Brigitte, mother of two good kids and wife of Tony. My love for craft has been first for stamping/cardmaking since...1996 but only few years down the track (after having my children it was a natural thing to try scrapbooking simply bcos coming from the Pacific islands (i still have my family there) I wanted to start a family album for one of each children. Then...i embarked on a journey....

my style has been very very simple at first (well considering that we didn't have much at that time back in 2003 !) compared to now !! but then...my stash grew and grew and my style changed a lot. i wouldn't say i have a particular style, it's ever changing...just like what's in the trend in the scrapbooking world !! i like to experiment with few things...and wish...there were more hours in a day to experiment even more !!! Scrapbooking has become another passion ( i still love my stamps !!) and through this passion, i've met great people and made great friends ! Now...living in a community who really cares for the environment and my children's school who promote re-using and re-cycling clothes and things, i started thinking of bits and pieces i could re-use/re-cycle on my LO. (fabrics from old clothes, buttons, laces, milk bottles (cut with accu-cut machine), wrapping paper, clothes tags ect... but i'd say my fav. recycling/garbage item at the moment would be my cereal boxes that i often use for the covers of my mini-albums or use them in my sizzix machine to make my chipboard letters ect....So finding Everyday Garbage site was just so perfect for me !!! and looove the challenges, they are sooo much fun. So...some bits may not be acid-free but heyyy...now and then...let's have fun and be creative with the simple and cheap things in life!!!

So there you have it for this fortnight! Some fun new twists on ordinary stuff that floats around in our handbags and how we hope we've shown you how to make the ordinary extraordinary. Lusi will be sitting this challenge out as she has many fabulous and wonderful things going on right now (and if you'd like to check out her brand new range of stamps have a look here and chipboard here) so we'l see her next challenge.

You know the drill - you can either email us or blog link your takes on the challenge in the comments section and we'll do our best to get them up on our slider as quickly as possible so everyone can have a look at your garbagy goodness. Entries close on Sunday 28th October at midnight AEST and we will be choosing a winner for our RAK shortly after that. We will be posting the winner of our last RAK asap so stay tuned for that one too.

Thanks again for stopping by our challenge blog and we'd love for you to have a go if you're a lurker and naturally we cant' wait to see the gorgeous work from you girls who are fast becoming our much-loved "regulars"!!!

Go have a dig around that handbag and see what you can make extraordinary!

I bet you have a mountain of this ordinary stuff!

2007-10-14T21:17:40+10:00

.....oh yeah....these are receipts/paperwork/dockets....you name it, it's all in here!

What would you do with a mountain of unwanted scraps of paper that we all keep? Hey come on here guys, it's paper! It's what we do best!!!! lol Show us some creative love here guys!!!