Sunday, August 14, 2011

Using the Page Map to Create a Special Page

This month I used the page map almost exactly as designed by Erica and love the result. You can make a great page quickly by using the page map.

The Teresa Collins Notation paper goes great with the vintage look papers of the Off the Record line so I combined papers from these two lines to create my page. Just pick the papers you want to use and cut them into the various shapes shown on the page map.

I did a few things to make this page unique.

The circles on the page map screamed flowers to me so I made flowers using the Tim Holtz Sizzix Tattered Flowers Die. The die cuts four flowers and I cut a couple of times using the Fabric store paper. When putting the flowers together, I used some on each side of the paper and used different numbers of flowers for each one. To finish the flowers, I added red buttons from the Doodlebug Boutique Button ladybug garden assortment. Before affixing them to the flowers, I threaded them with black string and tied a knot on top.

I made the accent lines on the page map by sewing. As a seamstress in my younger days, I fought against sewing in my scrapbooking saying that if I wanted to sew, I would sew. But the lines on the page map, suggested flower stems and I thought they’d look best if sewed. For me this meant buying a Sew Easy Stitch Piercer. This tool creates holes in the paper so sewing is a snap. You simply use it to put the holes where you want them. I made the flower stems. Using brown floss, I sewed the stems. Two great things with sewing. You don’t need to invest a great deal in the supplies. Scrapbooks Plus has a wide variety of floss and many can be purchased by the yard. You are not limited with straight lines like I have used. There are 7 different heads for the Sew Easy Stitch Piercer at Scrapbooks Plus so you can sew a variety of patterns. I’ve already got another one for my future pages.

For the background, I used a circle cutter to cut a partial circle in each corner to create tabs to slip another piece of paper in. To make each circle the same size and in the same location, I put making tape on the circle cutter to line up with the corner. (This sounds harder than it is. It is really quite easy.) I inked the tabs, inside and outside edges with Black Soot Distress Ink. I wasn’t quite happy with the little flowers on the tabs in two corners. I fixed that by coloring them with Copics. I used YG63, YG67 and R29.

I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix Tattered Banner die to cut the title. Since the die also includes smaller banners, I used these smaller ones for my journaling.

Check out the page map. This one really allows you to create a great page in no time at all.

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