30 Days of Scraps | September 2025
It started as a simple experiment: could I make something every day, with Just a notebook and an envelope filled with 30 handwritten prompts I had created on a whim one summer night?
Below, you’ll find the story behind THIS month-long COLLAGE rebellion.
Each day, I’d pull a prompt — making it part creative challenge, part scavenger hunt, part visual diary of my life. Some days it asked me to use only pieces with numbers or of the same colour; other days I’d need to reflect on my summer or create a dialogue using scraps in different languages. Sometimes it made perfect sense, and I had a clear vision right away. Other times, I had no clue what I was doing — even when the collage was done. Some pages came easily; others didn’t want to exist at all.
This isn’t a showcase or a portfolio — or rather, it’s not intended to be viewed as such. Instead, it’s a field study in what happens when you give yourself permission to slow down, making something - no matter how small/messy/absurd - and call it enough. It also served as a reminder that creativity doesn’t need ideal conditions, as long as there’s intention, time, and scraps of whatever’s at hand.
Scroll down to explore the collages — imperfect, raw, and alive (click on pictures to enlarge).
Maybe they’ll inspire you to start your own 30-days-of-something — or simply to notice the little scraps already gathering in your life.
👉 Want to join the next round? Follow along on instagram @lifescraps.nl
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The scraps became tiny field notes of my everyday life. It quickly turned into something bigger — not in size, but in feeling — where the process itself was as important, if not more so, than the result. Many days, I’d find myself looking forward to that pause at the end of the day: a chance to unwind, think less, and just let my hands (and eyes) lead the way.
What I didn’t expect was how this little ritual would start not only capturing my days, but shaping them. This challenge wasn’t designed to be a mental surgery, a chronicle of heartbreak, or a melancholy diary. Alas, life has its own way — even when you’re the one who made the prompts. I’ll be honest with you: September was a rough period for me.
And so, by the end of the month, I had thirty small collages — not perfect, not polished, but raw and alive in their own way. Scraps have their own kind of honesty. This is what I made out of what was left.ption text goes here
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This page is an archive of those pieces, shared as they are. Even the scanning process didn’t go as planned: I went to the library to get them scanned properly, but after those files got corrupted (twice!), I took it as a sign to keep things candid and just use my phone. I think you’d agree that the photos kept these collages more vivid and expressive — tactile, even.
You’ll also find short reflections and small lessons I learned along the way on lifescraps’ Instagram, where I posted each process on a daily basis — be it timelapses of me skimming through magazines or cutting things out, flatlays of scraps, or shots of almost-ready collages — as a way of keeping myself accountable and documenting the experience honestly. And yes, there you’ll see me collaging with a hand covered in bandages after I clumsily gave myself a second-degree burn, moving my “workstation” from the floor to the table after yet another silly, beyond-explanation foot injury, and collaging well into the night — sometimes even into the following day when finishing in one go felt too intense. It was tough, but it was worth it.
