Guest Blogger: Scrapbook Steals.com!

I am so excited to get to share a How To’sday tutorial on ScrapbookSteals! Let’s weave some fun into a couple of layouts!
First Weave Idea–

• Grab three pieces of cardstock. Two to weave and one to use as a base.

• Cut the same size strips of your weaving cardstock. I did one inch, but any size works.

• Gently tack down the very edge of a set of your strips, alternating the end you tack down.

• Start to weave the other card stock over the tacked down piece and under the loose piece. Then alternate the over under and continue across the page. You need to tighten your weave as you go.

• Once you’ve finished, tack down your loose ends and trim the edges if needed.

• Cover the top edge with a border and design your page!

Second weave idea-
Every little kid has done this, but a redo is great for a hidden journaling element on a page.

• First, cut two rectangles.

• Next fold them in half and trim the edge to a half circle.

• Cut even size strips from the bottom fold to just past the width of the paper when laid across at 90 degrees. I cheated and used a pattern paper with lines so I could free hand the cuts. I stacked my papers so the cuts would match.

• This part is hard to explain. Think of the bands of paper as arms, and they’re giving bear hugs, (you know when someone grabs you around the arms and you can’t move?) alternate the bands around and through each other. As you go, it gets tighter, so be patient.

• When you’re done, you should have a heart basket that you can punch or cut hearts into for a hidden journal pocket.

I hope you loved my weaving magic!

Weaving- My process.

Sometimes when I finish a layout, I get asked how I came up with that.

This layout was inspired from the weaving on baskets, and another take on the quilting idea.  The idea had been tossing around in my head for a bit,so I decided to give it a go with this sweet picture of my snuggly girlie.

I wanted to contrast two patterned papers against each other, and still try to keep the cohesiveness of the two.  When I finished, the edges weren't what I hoped they would be, so I framed the weaving with a 1 1/2 inch border, and angle cut the edges at a 45 degree angle to give it a finished look.

With just the weaving and the frame, the layout was too much for that photo.  I selected a blue mat to contrast with the pink, and that helped the photo some, but not enough.

I added the flowers to help anchor the picture into the layout.  The weaving made the layout "busy" so I had to balance that with larger embellishments.  When I was fussy cutting the paper, there were not a lot of whole flowers, so I added some scallop punches.  On a couple of them, I copied the patterned paper by tracing some circles in the middle of the scallop and adding dots around the edges.

Ultimately, I ended up with this layout, which is one I adore.  I hope you like it too.