Paper Piecing with the Silhouette

Making your own embellishments is not only fun, but can ensure you have something that really supports the theme of your card or scrapbook page.  These elements are ones I made for a scrapbook elements swap.  They were cut on my Silhouette using different colors of cardstock and then glued together for a quick and easy paper pieced effect.  HINT:  For putting glue on all the little pieces, nothing beats the little Xyron sitcker machine!

I'm not sure where I got the patterns.  Some might have come with the Silhouette machine, some might have come from the UKScrappers web site (the Craft Robo/Silhouette forum), and others might have come from a set of pattern books I got from Hot Off the Press.  And I easily could have adapted them from any of these places as well.  Once thing about it, the Silhouette certainly makes it easier for folks that would rather avoid the trace and cut aspect of most paper piecing! 

I really appreciate that the Silhouette software allows one to create cut lines from a jpeg file.  This makes it pretty easy to take a pattern and get it cut electronically.  I even have done "print and cut" with my Silhouette where I made some paper pieced daisies, but printed their "faces" before having the Silhouette cut them out.  NICE!

Journaling Tips 9 - Hidden Journaling

Today's page has journaling that was printed on plain paper, cut out, and glued to tags.  But it also contains HIDDEN journaling (note the "Pull" tab in the bottom left-hand corner of the page).  First, WHY would you put hidden journaling on a page?  There could be a couple of reasons.  There might be a rather private story that you don't want everyone to see (in which case you might not put a very visible "Pull" tab on it!).  Or, you could have a situation like I did here.  I didn't have enough room on the page to tell the story I wanted to tell. So, I HID it behind a picture!  This next picture shows what it looks like when the hidden journaling is revealed:

So, how did I do that?  First, I printed the journaling I wanted on a plain piece of paper, folded it up (fold is about half-way down the journaling) and then glued the top part of it to a piece of cardstock.  I cut a little tab with an exacto knife and wrote the word "Pull" with a white opaque pen.  I mounted the picture carefully with glue on 3 sides, leaving the top open so the journaling could be slipped in behind it.  (In the future, I would make a small envelope with an opening at the top.  Glue the photo to the front and glue the back of the envelope to the page.  This would make for a sturdier pocket.)

One more thing was needed.  Since I keep my pages in page protectors, I needed to cut a slit in the protector where the journaling would slide in and out.  To do this I slipped the page into the protector and used a dry-erase pen to mark the line that needed to be cut.  Then I pulled the page out and slipped a cutting mat inside in its place.  Using a craft knife I cut the slit carefully and then erased the remaining marks from the dry erase marker.  I slid the page back in place (minus the journaling) and then slipped the journaling in through the slit in the page and behind the picture.

Too Many Pictures

The challenge this layout presented was that I wanted it to be a memento of our entire trip.  I was just making an 8 x 8 page and we went 5 places that were all very different.  I wanted a picture of each, but there was no way to make that fit and still have room for title, journaling, etc.  What to do?

What I did was create a photo wheel that I placed behind the page, with a frame cut out of the page itself.  The wheel can be turned to allow a person to see each of the 5 photos.  Here's another view showing a different photo in the picture window:

Note that there's an arrow showing the direction to turn the wheel, and there's a second little window cut out to show the number of the photo that corresponds to the numbers in the journaling block.

Words with Brad Accents

Here's an interesting focal that combines purchased elements with pretty scalloped mats. 

The words were from a sentiments on vellum type of pack.  Obviously I cut around them with my Nestability die in my Big Shot machine. and then cut a couple of progressively larger mats. 

A scrap of patterned paper makes a great border - especially with the narrow brown borders added.

The shaped brads make nice replacements for the dots of the "i"s, as well as an easy way to attach the vellum to the mats.