Collage Crafting Tip...

I don't know about you, but I like to be prepared, so it's no surprise that one of the nicknames given to me over the years by my friends is "Mom."

Need a band-aid?  Tissue?  Eye drops?  Gum?  Snack?  Advil?  Nail file? Etc...
Sure enough, I'd have it and what would follow would be a "thanks Mom" from my friend in need.  Now, this kind of makes me sound like I'm a super organized person, but I'll be the first to rat myself out and tell you that's far from the truth.  The band-aid is probably bent in five different directions, the tissues are really just a wad that I grabbed from the box at home and the granola bar is most likely broken into a thousand bits, but I still have it!  My purse has the magic of Mary Poppins...only messy.

My desire to be prepared extends far beyond the black hole of my hand bag.  I always like to have a steady supply of crafting supplies hidden in my studio all locked and loaded, ready to be used.  It may take me a half hour or so to remember where I stashed the particulars, but they are there!

If you want to have an instant art project in your back pocket, just waiting for those desperate and hairy moments when you need entertainment for your ankle-biters, then start collecting paper.  Wooooo!  We're gettin' crazy now....paper!  I'm talking collages people.  My pre-school class loved making collages and if I were to ever get sick at the last minute and not had the opportunity to prepare a full project for my substitute, I could always rely on the fact that my collage stash was there.

• Scrapbook paper and decorative tid-bits are all well and good, so if you have a bunch of that...awesome.  Save your scraps in a shoe box or something of the sort and keep adding to it.  BUT...sometimes scrapbooking supplies aren't cheap.  SO, here are some tips for bulking up your creative paper supply...

• Take a trip to Home Depot and pretend you are painting your whole house and grab yourself a bunch of paint swatches.  Cut the rainbow swatches apart and you have a bunch of colorful squares ready to be made into houses or anything else the kids can think of.

(swatch photo source)

• Check out your local wallpaper store and see if they have any outdated sample books to donate to your cause.  They can offer a lot of textural variety.  We had some given to our pre-school and they were wonderful to have.  
• If you have magazines or catalogs sent to your home, tear out pretty pages or cut out fun images you like as you are going through them.  These make excellent additions to your collage stash.
• If you suffer from allergies (as I do) then you might go through massive amounts of tissue boxes.  I always buy tissue boxes that have colorful and funky designs on them because I consider them to be valuable future craft supplies.  When the box is empty, I cut out the pretties and add them to my paper collection!

There are tons of great resources out there to help you bulk up your art supplies on the cheap.  As I think of more, I'll let you know, but right now this is all I have on the collage front.  :-)   If you have some other ideas for inexpensive collage papers, please share with the class!  Your comments are always welcome.

With your well stocked paper supply, scissors, glue sticks, some basic drawing utensils, and some imagination you'll never be stranded without an easy "go-to" collage project.  Have fun & get messy!

:-)  Miss Jenna