Tuesday, April 19, 2016

How to Create a Vellum Frame to Highlight your Focal Point-Week #16



 I can remember when sheets of simple white vellum were the rage. I would buy them in packs or small booklets, eager to use the sheets as journal strips or to embellish a scrapbook layout.  Now I see it appearing as die cuts, tags, or gold foiled sheets.I am tempted to buy some of the new things but I still have a full book of that white vellum hanging out in my supplies. Since vellum is making a reappearance on the trend scene, I think it's time we put it to use. You can easily use it to highlight your focal photo, creating what is essentially a simple vellum frame.

First, you will need to choose the right photo. Look for one that has your subject in the center but might not be the very best picture you have. A lot of empty space in the picture works well. You might be asking why you wouldn't just crop the empty space out of the picture. Sometimes that empty space provides context for the story. For example,I chose photos of my son at a co-workers wedding. He was one of just a few kids( the youngest there) and when it was time for the kids dance, he was pretty much alone on the dance floor. I wanted to show that he was all by himself, but I also didn't want him to get lost within the photo. It's not a great picture of him either. The lighting was horrible. I did play around with cropping the photo, but I found it made it blurry. I printed the photo at an almost 5x7 size.It was the largest I could go with the original picture without losing picture quality. Using the vellum frame allows me to make him the focal point of the picture. The background is still there, but just not as noticeable. Print any support photos in a smaller size.




Once you have chosen the picture, cut the vellum down to a size that covers it completely. DON"T adhere is to the photo just yet. Determine what shape you want the frame to be. I chose a circle, but you could easily use a square, hexagon or other shape. Use a template or draw the shape free hand. Make sure not to bear down heavily on the pencil. Lighter lines are easier to erase.



Use a craft knife to cut the shape out of the vellum. Erase any stray pencil lines, then adhere the vellum to the picture. I used a xyron tape runner, but only placed small sections of adhesive in the corners. I did not press down heavily. My goal was for the adhesive not to show, but if it did,I could cover those spots with the title and embellishments.


You can leave the frame as is, or embellish a little. I chose to add some hand stitching around the circle. You could also outline the frame with a pen. Finish the layout by adding your title, embellishments and journaling.

Do you have a big stash of vellum hidden somewhere? Or have you come up with some unique ways to use it up? Share your vellum tips in the comments.

Supplies Used:
Xyron Adhesive
Craft Knife by Westcott Brand
Paper by Cocoa Daisy
Letters by Jillibean Soup and American Crafts
Die Cuts by Pink Paislee and Fancy Pants



Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Make a Collage of Mini Photos - Week #14

Anytime that I play tourist, I have a tendency to take literally hundreds of pictures in a single day. So being able to fit a lot of them on a single layout helps a lot towards getting them scrapped. That's why, for this layout, I chose to do a collage of mini photos.

The background layout of this design is from Design 6 of Jennifer Priest's Scrap Free Scrapbooking ebook. This design creates a huge open block that holds my collage perfectly, and a title strip down the right side.

The photos for my collage are all horizontal 3x4 photos. These are easy to print at home from my Adobe Lightroom software but several online photo printers will also print this size as well. Printing them from home, I just print them on a 4x6 sheet of photo paper and then they can be trimmed down with a trimmer, like my Westcott Titanium. 

At the bottom of my photo collage, I added in a few ephemera pieces. One of them is this hand with a finger pointing. The piece is large enough to use a tape runner on the main area of, but if I did that, the tiny point of the finger would not have adhesive and would be at risk of sticking up and getting damaged. By putting it through my Xyron Create-A-Sticker 150, it has adhesive over the entire back and sticks down securely. 

Stamping is a great way to add a custom touch to a pre-made embellishment. In this case, I used Colorbox's Archival Chalk ink to add a travel themed stamp to a piece of non-themed ephemera. I especially love chalk ink for applications like this because the matte finish looks more like it is part of the original printed piece. It also has a more vintage appearance that works well for this layout's style.
The original pattern called for cutting a 2" strip of paper from the edge of a piece of patterned paper, leaving the tear strip attached so you end up with a strip about 2.5" wide. I wanted to use cardstock for this strip, which doesn't have a tear strip, so I cut it at 2.5" and then used washi tape to mimic the look of a tear strip. 

You may have heard that you can't use gray and brown together. It's true that they are difficult to match, but not impossible. You just have to make sure that they both have the same undertones. 
The collage under the title holds more stamping that I used to customized the journaling tickets. The top ticket (the one with the date) is also a stamp. For the ticket, I used a charcoal Chalk Ink to get a softer, more matte effect than using black. On the journaling tickets, I used Colorbox Archival Black because it matched the look of the numbers on the tickets. 

There's an interesting piece of trivia related to this layout, too: the journaling pen that I used is also a souvenir from my trip! It's part of a Faber-Castell set of pens that I purchased in Frankfurt airport on the day after my Heidelberg excursion. 

While these photos may seem like a random assortment, they were very carefully chosen to cover the breadth of my Heidelberg experience. Shots represent the castle, a church, the shopping street I browsed on, the university's presence in the town, and the juxtaposition of old and new present everywhere. The photo overlooking the city is a great scenic overview, and the selfie it includes of me shows how cold it was too! There's a lot packed into these six photos! 

Supplies:
  • Tim Holtz idea-ology "Dapper" collection
  • Bazzill cardstock
  • Recollections by Michaels washi tape
  • American Crafts "Remarks" alphabet stickers
  • Tim Holtz idea-ology Journaling Tickets
  • Kelly Purkey "Ready, Jet, Set" stamps
  • Colorbox Pigment Archival Ink in black
  • Tim Holtz idea-ology Flash Cards
  • Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen (Dark Sepia - S)
  • Crate Paper "Notes & Things" ephemera pack
  • Colorbox Archival Chalk Ink in Charcoal & Chestnut Roan
  • Tim Holtz for Stamper's Anonymous "Odds & Ends" stamps
  • Tim Holtz idea-ology Typed Tokens
  • Tim Holtz idea-ology "Expedition" ephemera pack
  • Brad (unknown)
How many photos have you gotten onto a single layout?