Hey HEY he-ey,
Sometimes I get visions of scrapbook pages. (Does that sound weird to say that I see pages?) Sometimes it's the whole page with all of the details, right down to the stitching. Sometimes it's just bits. I had this whole page pop into my head.
And then I thought, "Shoot. How do I DO that?" It turned out to be pretty easy, but I thought it merited a quick tutorial. Shall we?
NOTE: This is a great page to make to use up scraps of paper! The only 12x12 sheet I used was the template (which you can save and reuse) and the cardstock backing.
1. Get a 12x12 sheet of cardstock to use for your template. Draw a 5x7 rectangle towards the bottom right of the paper. Then make a dot in the bottom right quadrant of the paper. Using a ruler, draw 15 (or so) lines from your dot to the edges of the paper.
I purposely didn't have any of my lines go to the corners of the page or the corners of my rectangle, and I wanted each of my sections to be different sizes. No symmetry here! I think it makes it look more interesting.
2. Number each of your segments. I ended up with 15. I started with the top left piece and numbered clockwise so that the template would be easy to put together after I cut everything apart.
3. Cut the 5x7 piece out of your cardstock but don't cut to the edge of the page.
4. Cut along your pencil lines so that you're left with 15 template pieces.
5. Trace your template shapes onto various patterned papers. You should pay a little attention to which papers end up next to each other. I again made everything random and stayed away from any particular order.
6. Cut the patterned paper just inside your traced lines. This way, your shapes won't quite fit together, and the cardstock behind them will peek through.
7. Lay out your pieces on a piece of 12x12 cardstock. Once you check to make sure everything looks good, adhere your shapes to the cardstock.
Note: Feel free to adapt as you go. I got to the last shapes and saw that 2 pieces for shapes 6 & 7 were going to mess me up. So I taped the templates 6 & 7 together and made them into one piece.
8. Once everything is tacked down, stitch the perimeter of each shape. I cut my thread after each piece so that each shape has its own stitched border.
9. Pull the ends of your top threads through to the back side of the page. Tape and trim the threads. Add photos, journaling, a title, and embellishments.
Supplies: Patterned paper: Bazzill, Studio Calico, Scenic Route. Brads: dear lizzy + American Crafts. Alpha stickers: Basic Grey. Pen: Sharpie. Cardstock, thread.
Since I used lots of bold colors and patterns, I did a few things to balance it out.
1. matted the photos and outlined them with a navy Sharpie
2. used simple and sparring embellishments (just a few cloth-covered brads)
3. used large and simple letters for a title
And that's it! It came together in 2 nights, and that's not even sitting down until after dinner!
Good luck!
