What is a serendipity square?  To answer that you need to know the definition of Serendipity.   www.dictionary.com defines the word as

ser·en·dip·i·ty 

The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
An instance of making such a discovery.
When you are playing with your supplies and happen to lay two papers down next to each other and they look great in a combination you would not have thought to use on your own, that is serendipity.

So how are the squares serendipitous?

When you make these embellishments you use smaller pieces of paper and leftover stickers and use stamps and inks and throw anything on there that you have lying around and each time they look different and end up making an interesting addition to any layout or card.  They NEVER look bad.

How do I begin?

First thing: DO NOT clean up your scrap area.  This project is best started when you are winding down from your scrap time and your scrap pieces of paper are sitting around you.  Even if they are from different projects, as long as the papers look nice together they will work.

You will need the following:

1 piece of cardstock (any size, shape, or pattern)
Xyron or other permanent adhesive (repositional will NOT work)
Scrap pieces of paper and/or leftover stickers (including cardstock, mulberry, vellum, handmade, any type of paper scrap you have available)

There are several ways to do this, but this author has found this process to be the easiest:

1.      Run the cardstock through the Xyron.

2.      Expose the sticky surface and randomly place the scrap papers and stickers onto the adhesive. 

3.      As you place them down, feel free to let them overlap the edges of the paper so that you have less exposed edges of the cardstock.  There is no rhyme or reason to this process and if you feel the need to be orderly in your placement then this would be a good time to let your children or grandchildren help you.

4.      Fill the entire paper, leaving little to no adhesive exposed

5.      With another type of adhesive, adhere any loose edges of paper (where paper has overlapped paper)

6.      If you have stamps and ink, feel free to stamp random images over the papers even embossing the images (and any extra adhesive that might be showing through from the original cardstock)

7.      At this point you have a very distasteful piece of paper in front of you that looks horrible… Trim the sides of the cardstock of any papers that are hanging off.

8.      Using a trimmer or ruler and Craft Knife, cut your paper into any size square (1x1 or 2x2 are most common and easiest to use on layouts and cards). 

Serendipity Squares can also be used as a photo mat, cut them into triangles for photo corners, cut them out into a tag for gifts.  Be bold with your squares and embellish them further by wrapping them with wire and adding beads and charms.  Try tying fibers around them or stringing them together with floss at the bottom of a layout.  Serendipity at it’s finest.