Technique - using very patterned paper

I am loving the newest range of Basic Grey papers which are very arty and graphic. They can be challenging but if you think about how to borrow the artwork of the designers for your page, you can create some stunning effects.

To ensure that I had plenty of artwork to borrow I chose to do this layout in A4 size. This gives me sizeable strips of paper left over to cut from and also a small thin strip which came in handy too!

Here's how I did it:

To print the title I:

• Did several test prints with plain paper, placing each one over the patterned paper until it was close enough then I printed my title straight onto the page.

To anchor the photo I:

• Cut carefully around the bird shape and slipped the photo under it. I placed double sided tape behind both the bird and the photo to ensure the LO was flat.
• Cut a rectangle around one of the flourishes and placed it above the photo. This is an extremely easy way to use very detailed bits of artwork especially if you are placing them on the same colour background.
• Hancut a stem from the left over paper using a craft knife on a glass mat. If you don't have a glass mat consider using an old photo frame or a glass cutting board.
• Popped the stem to give a shadow over the photo.
• Cut a Hambly overlay right down to size and stapled it over our daughter. The overlay was actually only the bottom two corners. By cutting it and turning one corner over I made a custom frame the size I wanted it.

To place my journaling I:

• Looked for spaces I could fill with text.
• Drew lines lightly with a white signo pen.
• Added my text using a black Zig Writer.

To give the page dimension I:

• Sewed several stems using backstitch. I looked carefully at the shapes to find the edge I wanted, made sure I could find three of them somewhere on the page and then simply sewed them.
• Cut out various stems and pop dotted them. Because the viewer never sees the full piece of paper I could make bigger and much quicker cuts by cutting off tiny details that were too hard to cut.
• Layered cut bits of PP over the page. For example I cut a triangle out and placed it on the bottom lefthand corner and layered a cut out flower on top, using popdots for dimension. I love the layer on layer look.
• Layered flowers and buttons around the page.
• Added a circle of Dimensional Magic dots.

And what did I do with that thin strip of paper I mentioned...well I wove it in and out of the layout. Look near the title, on the righthand side!

To do this I:

• Cut some slits horizontally up the page.
• Wove the strip through, going up and down.
• Cut some more horizontal strips through some of the sewn strip.
• Wove another strip through.
• Anchored two ends with a brad and made sure the pale blue of the brad was repeated somewhere close in a visual triangle.

Easy!