1. Overwhelmed by the plethora of new products and techniques? Is your creativity is blocked and you don't know where to start? Get back to the basics by rediscovering your stash, and those early items that first drew you to altered arts/rubber stamping/scrapbooking. An example: elegant & simple - use a detailed rubber stamp and Versamark for a tone-on-tone look to cards. Add a textural element by adding fine, clear embossing powder or make it elegant by using a coordinating color of powder...

2. Organization: there's nothing like a Spring Cleaning of your craft space as an impetus to create! While doing so, you can rediscover long-hidden items and maximize your creativity by combining the best of products old and new. Plus, once your creating space is neat and organized, all of your basic and well-worn tools are visible and handy and you won't be discouraged by messy piles of product laying on top of one another and cluttering your space...

3. Rethink/Reuse/Recycle - it's not just for the environment. Altered artists and scrappers alike can benefit creatively from this idea. It stretches your creative wings when you take this approach to many household items you'd otherwise just throw away. It's also a way to boost the creativity of the next generation of artists - gather and divide your scraps among sturdy zip lock or paper bags along with some basic tools (think, Dollar Store) and conduct your own scrapbook class activity - perfect to engage young minds at birthday parties and sleepovers.

4. Unique Gift Wrapping: A gift beyond the gift - the wrapping itself! Make something memorable, surprising and practical by "wrapping" it in another gift; an altered paper mache box personalized to the recipient; jewelry gifts incorporated into cards, such as a bust or portrait stamp with the necklace and earrings inserted at the neck and ears; baby clothes gently pinned to the backing of, and inside a shadow box; a well-chosen book containing an altered library pocket, containing a gift card...

5. Spring & Summer Entertaining: consider creative party favors using your scrap stash. Go Bohemian/Gypsy with your scraps. Use a medium to large punch shape to make die cuts of your mismatched scraps, then use them as tags for glassine or paper bag party favors, party garlands, place holders and wine glass tags. Use white, black or craft as your base color for disposable items like eating utensils and table runners or table clothes and napkins.

6. Around the House - creativity beyond paper. Use your stencils or rubber and foam stamps to invigorate your living spaces. Choose one room, such as a guest bath, to redecorate. Choose a theme (a good excuse to buy a new stamp or two!) and color palate. You can turn plain shower curtains, banded towels and ceramic containers into works of art that showcase your style and creativity, beyond your scrap space.

7. Fresh flowers don't last long - make a paper bunch! Stamp flowers onto a favorite paper or design your own shapes and print onto the back of scraps; cut out using an craft knife; attach the undersides of the paper flowers to floral wire and wrap with floral tape and insert into an empty vase. You can also alter these paper flowers with embossing powder or paste, chalking, inking, beads, buttons, plastic pearls, rhinestones, watercolor and pens or art markers. Consider rubber stamping flower shapes onto watercolor paper and painting the edges. This is a wonderful, everlasting bouquet to liven up your creative space. Take it a funky step forward and make a bunch of "flowers" out of non-flower shapes, such as large foam alphabets or any large stamp shape. This is a great way to coordinate a theme and color to any room...

8. Something Special: brighten up a brown bag luncher's day! The next time you sit down to create, consider taking your scraps and making uniformed tag notes to attach to or slip into those brown lunch bags - they won't be so plain anymore and it will be a wonderful surprise to the recipient. You can include these notes in those thermal bags and coolers, taking them from corporate blah to creative wow. These little works of art can even be made into a weekday collection of dates and inspiring quotes that can be attached to a wall calendar (or slipped into library pockets on a calendar)! It's a great pick-me-up from the daily grind and way for you to stretch your creative wings. With approximately 261 workdays a year, you will challenge yourself to create unique tags and a way to maximize your scraps…

9. Inspiration: non-scrap, non-bead and non-rubber stamp magazine covers and pages. Wedding, Lifestyle, Interior Design, Graphic Arts and Photography magazines can serve as inspiration for altered arts, rubber stamping and scrapbook layouts. These magazines excite by colors and design, ideas and concepts that can be applied to the altered arts, rubber stamping and scrapbooking. Consider a beautiful, colored glass vase - an idea for a monochromatic art glass bracelet; a rubber stamp, color-embossed image on vellum; a colored UTEE puddle element on a scrapbook page. I would recommend checking out the Fine Woodworking magazine - the artistry of those craftsmen is amazing...

10. Take Note: Creative Block Buster Technique. I love hanging out at Barnes & Noble on a weeknight, sitting in a deep, comfy chair and drinking an Italian soda treat. The best part is all of the craft magazines! I would go broke if I were to buy (or even subscribe) to every issue of every craft magazine. I even find that of the ones I do buy, most of the pages are adverts. While I still buy some of my favorites, I found a cost-effective tool to maximize my magazine-reading. I take notes. I bring a thin sketchbook every time I make a trip to the bookstore. The revived Moleskine notebooks are practical and beautiful - they come in craft and black, perfect for altering and come 3 to a pack, sold at Barnes & Noble. The 3-pack is handy for organizing your ideas by layouts, product resources and embellishment ideas, or however you choose. I bring a mechanical pencil with me to sketch layouts, card, jewelry and embellishment ideas, and write down product resources and internet sites to look up later. When I'm at my craft space with a mental block, I merely turn the pages of these notebooks for inspiration and to scraplift or re-adapt many of these ideas to a project at hand…