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After visiting a scrapbooking store and taking in all the
perfectly done pages, I loaded up on pretty papers and headed home
to make my own memories beautiful. I spent all my money on paper
and glue, leaving nothing for fancy punches, scissors or die cuts.
As I scrapped and cropped, I couldn't bear to throw out any of the
papers I bought. I even tucked away the tiny bits leftover
from punching holes so my pages would fit into my 3-ring binder
album. |
These and other small bits of paper quickly overwhelmed my
workstation.
Scraps tumbled out of my storage case with regularity. My
cat was quick to pounce on them, intent on mauling the sparkly
blue paper or red checks. I found dots of paper on the
floor, on my clothes and even in my bed! To unburden my
scrapbooking area, I decided to find a use for all those bits and
pieces. I took out some of my half-done layouts that had no
decoration and went to work. I used the bits for mats, borders,
and even created my own art using these minuscule pieces of paper.
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A two page spread of random photos desperately needed mats, but
the pictures were already glued to the plain pink background
paper. Using paper dots, and the leftover circles from my
3-ring album, it was easy to make new mats. |
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I spread all my existing leftover punched holes on the table.
For the oval pictures I blindly picked each circle of paper from
the mass of colored dots. I glued them just to the
outside of the picture, overlapping the picture slightly. I
continued until I had dots all around the photo. The jumble
of color from the photos was mirrored in the many colors of
punches. |
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If I wanted a monochromatic look I could have used a deeper or
lighter shade of pink, or I could have used only one color of dots
on all the frames. For circle shaped pictures I used one
color for most of the circle, using a contrasting color for one
dot at the top and at the bottom for interest. |
On square photos, the rounded dots looked strange all the way
around so I
placed three dots at the corners. One at the sharp angle and two
meandering down the side. This softened the edge of the
photos and made the spread look more cohesive. The dot gave
the impression of a photo corner. The two page layout now
had mats for all the photos. |
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I couldn't put the pages back in the album without a border,
besides I still had plenty of leftover dots. The background
paper was plain pink and needed more color. I spaced green,
yellow and lavender dots an inch apart around the entire page.
If there was a picture in the way, I pretended that the border
went under the picture. I created flowers by circling yellow
dots with lavender and lavender dots with yellow. Each
flower had five or six dots for 'petals'. After all, flowers
are some of my favorite things. To finish off the border, I
used a green gel pen to create a vine between the flowers and
green dot 'leaves'. |
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No page is complete without artwork! The small dots are perfect
for creating a mosaic effect. I designed two images.
A cat and a straw hat. For the cat I put two green dots for
eyes, and a pink dot for the nose. I added a few pen strokes and a
cat appeared. I filled in the slit like pupils of the eyes,
added whiskers and upside down triangles for ears. Lavender
and yellow dots formed into rows like cross-stitch made it easy to
make a hat. Two together, then centered below that three,
then four. Under the four dots I put four yellow and then
six more lavender. The finished product looks like a
lavender hat with a yellow band. To further define the image
I outlined it with a gold gel pen. |
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I used my imagination for these creations but I could have easily
taken a pattern from a cross-stitch or needlepoint book, using
each dot for a single stitch. Simple designs with only full
stitch will give your pages a homey look. |
Using leftover dots and bits of paper that are too little for
anything but a few hole punches you can make your pages come
alive. You can create your own designs or use your favorite
cross-stitch, needlepoint patterns, or fill in a design from a
child's coloring book. Making these patterns only requires scraps
of paper, a regular hole punch, and sometimes a pen.
And best of all, you can save your money and your precious papers.
Kate Staronkate@vims.edu |