Tripping Tuesday at the Zoo

Today Amy Rysavy of Prairie Paper & Ink posted her feelings on using retired stamps in projects she posts to her blog. And the comments were all in agreement that it was fine, and in this economy almost necessary, to use retired products. I agree. I have purchased stamps from people selling stuff because they could no longer use it for "publication" work. I would love to do publication work but most of my stuff is older and I can't afford to keep up any longer.

I am a member of the Fiskateers community and they have a little survey you fill out to tell the rest of the folks there a little about you. One of the questions is, "Favorite place to shop" my answer, the clearance aisle. And it's true. I make a bee line to clearance aisles in all the craft stores and often buy stuff that is retired and no longer available. I am creating thing to preserve my memories or brighten someone's day. I don't need the latest and greatest for that. When we look at the scrapbook in a few years will we even know what was current at the time. (Maybe we can identify the decade something was made by the banners, buntings, bikes, trees, owls, deer, hot air balloons, kites or cloud styles on the page.)

I am always happy to add truly new things to my stash but I don't obsess about it that much any more. (Though the Papertrey Ink designs make it really hard not to obsess a bit.)

I recently discovered or rediscovered that Tuesday Morning sells craft supplies. For those unaware Tuesday Morning is a retailer specializing in upscale closeout merchandise, with more than 800 stores across the United States. I last week I purchased some Tim Holtz grunge board, a small pack of Creative Imaginations 12x12 papers, the Daydreams designer paper from K & Company, and 2 Making Memories 5x7 mat packs for less than the grunge board would have been on it's own. Is any of this stuff current, well no but does it matter? Not so much.

click to enlarge

These pages were put together using materials that are retired, no longer fashionable and undesirable for publication. So I will self publish here. I had a plan for this Adventure as the Zoo page. I had the animal paper clips that someone gifted me a long time ago. I bought cute animal print labels from the Micheal's dollar bin that I was going to use for journalling. I even had the word ZOO ready to go - it was white chip board colored with 3 stripes of color; rust, white and artichoke. Then the Daydreams paper came into my house and my son liked this green print and it was back to the drawing board.

Wire paperclips that are shaped to look
like animals or other things make great
embellishments. This lion is attached
to the page with 4 small wires.

I kept the wire animals and discovered how easy and frustrating using wire on a page can be. Each figure is attached with a bit of wire through 1 hole and then those wires are taped to the back of the page or tag. I kept the idea of popping up the back packs on the mom's backs. Effective in real life but the photo doesn't really show it well.

Cutting out an element and popping it out of the picture
is a great way to use your duplicate photos.

But those animal print labels? Well if any you want some just send me your snail mail address. I'll send you an inspiration pack that includes a few of them. Along with some great postage stamps and a few pages from antique books.

The particulars: everything on this page is retired so giving you the details would just frustrate you more.

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Happy Crafting,
Katie

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