Scrappin’ Green: Ideas for Eco-friendly Memory Keeping~ 19th Edition

This week, SBCH member Lee Brehon shares an easy and FUN idea for making your own circular and scalloped templates. She recycles ice cream pail lids to do this! Thanks Lee for sharing a super GREEN scrappin’ idea with the SBCH community. Read on and get some inspiration from Lee: her practical and useful green ideas always inspire me!

Ideas for Making your own Templates
By Lee Brehon

I know this isn’t a “NEW” idea because this is something my grandmother showed me eons ago. But this is as green as it gets! My grandmother was a very practical woman and cut many of her own patterns. I remember her using this idea many times over, so I hope you enjoy it. (It’s also similar to an idea that I showed you here before, but using a different product.)

In this household, with so many children, we go through tons of ice cream. Because of this, I’ve acquired a huge stack of pails with lids. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of LO’s using large circles and scallops, and always find myself making my own patterns [templates] because of the many paper choices available. So I decided to cut my own patterns whenever I can!

Here’s what I do:

I simply take the lid of the ice cream pail and start by tracing my pattern out on the lid.

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Then I carefully cut around the pattern with a sharp blade. Go slow and carefully work around your pattern. (Shown here is a circular pattern.)
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Then I have a template I can use again and again!

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I don’t have to search through my papers to find it, cause I’ve punched a hole in it to hang. I can group all of the templates of similar shapes together.

If you don’t own any circle cutters or especially LARGE circle cutters, then the technique above is the cheapest and most practical way to make circles of different sizes. Imagine how many templates you can cut from a single lid!

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But here’s the best part……WHY STOP AT CIRCLES?? Make scallops, squares, tags and so much more!!

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Thanks for letting me share another one of my ideas!