Since scrapbooking has been around, so has paper-piecing, right? Or maybe its new to you, as a scrapbooker. Either way, being a younger-generation scrapbooker (hah! that sounds funny…), for the longest time I associated it with uncool, out-dated shapes and never pictured myself doing it for my own pages (I mean no offense by this, I’ve seen some lovely paper-pieced work, it was just never my thing!).
But – let me just say – my mind has been persuaded in recent years to try it myself after I found cool stamp images that I would actually love to piece together and add dimension to for my own scrapbook pages! The cool dinosaurs, cupcakes, and rockets in the “Vintage Pop” set, for instance, make me swoon and want to paper-piece like there’s no tomorrow! lol…so, I just can’t resist, now - my mind is forever changed! Paper-piecing is cool! And, when brainstorming this blog project, what with Halloween and costume decisions looming before us, these little “Vintage Pop” guys seemed like the perfect paper-pieced addition to a “Happy Dress-up Day” Halloween card! Here’s how I pieced together these little stamps to add some flair and fun to my card:
So, have I changed your mind? Can it be cool, to you, if you’ve never tried it before? If paper-piecing is new to you, or if its been pushed to the back of your bank-of-techniques in recent years, pull out some fun new Pink Paislee stamps and take a quick refresher course! You really only need a few scraps of patterned paper or cardstock to give a lot of oomph to stamped images, and if you keep the images simple, it’s really quick, too!
Here’s a quick how-to: Find a stamp image you want to use and look at the smaller parts of its bigger picture – does it have larger areas you can fill with color or pattern? Take, for example, the top pointed edge of the rocketship or the dinosaur’s teeth. Once you’ve decided which areas you’ll piece together, stamp the whole image on a piece of paper that will act as the base color. Then, stamp the same image/the parts of the image you need a few more times on the various different patterns or colors you need. Trim around these small areas and adhere them on top of the stamped base over the exact place these pieces are already stamped. Cut around the edge of the entire image, and voila! An updated, layered version of a classic technique we all know and love! Thanks so much for peeking – and have fun with your stamps!
Nicole H.
