Scrapbook Saturday - Conserving Patterned Paper - Stamped Treasures, Sherry Roth, Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

I have a layout to share with you today but I wanted to show you a little trick to conserve your patterned paper. Most of you know that I like to start my layouts with a sketch and lately I’ve been noticing a lot of sketches/layouts that start with patterned paper as a base and then have cardstock over top so that only a little of the patterned paper is peaking through. Like this Page Maps sketch:

I love the look of this but have always thought that it’s such a waste of such beautiful paper. And if you are using Stampin’ Up! paper you only get 2 sheets of each pattern so I just couldn’t justify doing it this way. Until I figured out a way to do it and still conserve a big part of your sheet.

For this example I started with a 12″x12″ piece of melon mambo polka dot paper from the brights paper stack and left a 1″ border all the way around. This left me with a 10″x10″ piece that I could use for something else.

Then I cut my white cardstock down to 11-1/2″x11-3/4″ and added it over top of my frame, leaving a border on the top, left and bottom, as shown in the sketch.

Then that 10″ square piece that I was left with… I flipped it over and used the pattern on the back for the dsp that is on top of that.

So this allowed me to use only 1 sheet of patterned paper and 1 sheet of cardstock. Then I could use the other one for the other side. It worked out perfectly and no waste or extra bulk! Here’s a look at my finished layout.

I used photos back from 2004 and for some reason had one of them printed in sepia tones – not sure why but I made it work with this layout.

For the title I used the a combination of two sets – Loving Thoughts (Memories) and Countless Thoughts 2 (Sweet). I used the paper piecing technique (you can find a video on how to do this here) for the word ‘Sweet’. And the flags are from the Geometrical stamp set.

The accent was created using the cannery framelit set which is retired however, you can still find it on the clearance rack, and a window sheet. I simply added the lines with a Sharpie marker and a white piece cut with the same shape with some sponging to make it stand out a little more against the white background.

Now that I’ve figured out a way to conserve my cardstock, I think you will see a few more layouts using patterned paper as the base!

Hope you have a creative weekend!

Sherry

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