Susan Carlson does fantastic fabric collages with glue and then quilts them. She uses crumb scraps as you describe. Some of her pieces are very well known - the rhino,the turtle etc. Perhaps you could give it a go. She was on the Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims and the episode inspired me. You can see some of her stuff at this link:
http://www.susancarlson.com/Welcome.html