Olive found this in "Cloth Paper Sissors"

It has a few useful hints for when the good ideas well is running a little dry....

Challenge Your Ingenuity

It's one thing to be creative if you have an unlimited budget but real creativity happens when your resources are limited.

Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

Besides, upcycling. and re-using is all the rage right now: it's environmentally friendly and economical.

Here are just some ways you can make it work by upcycling.


 
Stamps and stencils

•   Clean out your junk drawer and use some of those found objects as stamps.

•   Inspect before you recycle: would the bottom of that plastic cup make a good impression?

•   Raid the veggie drawer: half a lemon is better than no stamp at all.

•   Make way for doilies: paper or fabric, these make terrific stencils. Consider using only part of them if you don't want a real granny look.

Paints, dyes, and other colorants

•   Acrylic paints can be used to “dye” fabric, especially fluid acrylics whose pigment is intense.

•   Tea and coffee dye fabric and papers beautifully. Experiment with different kinds of teas and coffee intensity.

•  Raid the kids' art cabinet. Of course there's a difference between artist-grade oil sticks, acrylic paints, blendable markers, etc. and the stuff that comes in a set made for kids for £5. But often— and especially when you're experimenting or messing about in your art journal—the difference isn't enough to worry about.

 Fabric and paper

•   Old pairs of jeans, that embroidered top your teen spilled orange juice on, and wool socks with the worn-out heels can all become fodder for a fabric art project.

•   Receipts, especially ones with lots of numbers, make terrific first layers for collage and mixed-media painting backgrounds.

•   Dryer sheets can be painted, cut, and stitched.

•   Plastic bags can be fused, painted, and stitched into wearable art, wall hangings, and more.

•   Abandoned art experiments can be can be upcycled by using them as art journal backgrounds, cut up and rearranged as wall hangings or used in collage, painted over, and turned into mixed-media jewelry.

•                     Old book pages can be used for collage and art journal backgrounds, folded into 3-D art, cut up for text, and more.

Taken from ‘Cloth Paper, Scissors’

Its all good advice.....but I'm not sure about using my old receipts in my work though... the world does not need to know the extent of my red wine and chocolate habit!!!