If you love the look of digital journal kits but don’t actually make journals, this one is for you.
One of the things I say all the time at Timeless Scraps is that a digital kit isn’t an instruction sheet. It’s a pile of supplies. Print it, cut it up, resize it, layer it, mix it with what you already have—and make whatever the heck you want with it.
Yesterday at the Timeless Table: 3 easy ideas
During yesterday’s At the Timeless Table, I used digital printables to make three simple projects that have absolutely nothing to do with building a journal: a sheet of small gift tags, a bookmark, and an art piece for the wall.
Those are the first three. But once you stop looking at a digital kit as something that has to become a journal, there are a whole lot more possibilities.
4. Happy Mail & Decorated Envelopes
Digitals are perfect for making ordinary mail considerably less boring. Use a background paper to create an envelope, add printed ephemera to a plain envelope, make a little tuck-in for a friend, or build a small cluster for the front of a package.
You don’t need to cover every square inch. One interesting label, a torn strip of patterned paper and a bit of stitching or ink can turn a regular envelope into something that feels like it already has a story.
5. Scrapbook Pages & Memory Keeping
Journal kits are basically coordinated paper collections—which makes them ridiculously useful for scrapbooking.
Print a background at full size for a page base, resize papers for mats and layers, and use labels, tickets, frames, florals and other ephemera around your photos. You can use the same idea for family albums, travel pages, heritage photos, recipe books or little memory pages you keep in a binder.
6. Party & Table Décor
A coordinated digital kit can also do a surprising amount of work for a party, dinner or special occasion. Resize pieces into place cards, make little favour tags or treat toppers, wrap printed strips around napkins, or turn labels and ephemera into tiny signs for a buffet or dessert table.
You can keep it simple or go completely overboard. The useful part is that everything already coordinates, and you can print exactly as many pieces as you need.
7. Use One Sheet and See What Happens
This might be the best one if you’re staring at a folder full of digitals and have no idea where to start.
Pick one sheet. That’s it. Then challenge yourself to make something small from it: an ATC, twinchie, cluster, pocket, altered paper clip, mini envelope, tiny folio or whatever else your brain comes up with.
Limiting yourself to one sheet takes away the pressure of choosing from 40 pages and turns it back into play. And scraps count. In fact, scraps are usually where the interesting stuff starts.
Your Digitals Are Supplies, Not Instructions
A kit might have been designed with journals in mind, but that doesn’t mean it has to become one.
An ephemera page can become gift tags. A long scrap can become a bookmark. A beautiful image can become an art piece for the wall. A label can become a place card. And one random printed sheet can become an afternoon of tiny projects you hadn’t planned at all.
So open that folder you’ve been saving, print something you love, and use the damn thing. 😂
And if you make something from your Timeless Scraps digitals that isn’t a journal, I would love to see what you come up with.
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