The Best of British Scrapbooking & Cardmaking

Contents

1. How To Flip Type in Microsoft Word
2. How To Flip Type the Low Tech Way
3. How to Mix Patterned Papers
4. How to Customize Accents
5. How to Scraplift Any Scrapbook Page
6. How to Use Three Dimensional Glue
7. How To and Why You Want To Overlap Your Page Elements
8. How to Print Your Journaling on Less Than a Full Sheet of Paper
9. How To Dry Emboss

1. How To Flip Type in Microsoft Word

To create a mirror image of a word using Microsoft Word, go to the drawing icon on your toolbar. (It's the tilted letter 'A' with a cylinder and a box.) Click on it to get a new toolbar (which starts with the word 'Draw' on the left) across the bottom of your screen. Click on the tilted letter 'A' in that bottom toolbar (it's the first big letter 'A' on your left).You will get a box allowing you to type in a word. Choose your font and size. When you are finished click 'OK.' Now hold down your left click on your mouse and drag it over your word or phrase. Once the box has appears around your verbiage, you can go to Draw (the word at the bottom left of your bottom toolbar) and click the down arrow and then the Rotate or Flip command. Choose Flip Horizontal. Now print the word on your cardstock and cut it out.

2. How To Flip Type the Low Tech Way

Here's a low tech way to flip your type. 1.) Print out the word you want to flip on thin paper. (The paper must be thin enough for the word to show through.) 2.) Flip the paper to the backside and trace the letters. (They will be flipped.) 3.) Flip the paper over again, and colour the front of that paper with a graphite pencil, colouring over the letters with a solid layer of graphite. 4.) Position the paper graphite side down (front side down) on your paper and re-trace the letters with a pencil. 5.) Lift the paper and you'll see your letters drawn mirror image in graphite. 7.) Cut out the letters.

3. How to Mix Patterned Papers

If you are unsure about mixing and matching papers, start by working with a range that offers coordinated products. This trains your eye to be more comfortable with the possibilities. Your next step might be to move to using various monochromatic patterned papers together. This way, the common colour will help you find good matches.

Now you are ready to go to a more complex level. Try using a piece of solid colour patterned paper as your background piece or as a major portion of your layout. Treat the solid colour patterned paper as you would a piece of solid colour cardstock.

Add a piece of neutral colour patterned paper to your mixture of patterned papers. The neutral will soften the other papers. Or pick up a colour from your patterns and introduce it as a solid.

Once you've chosen the papers you might want to use, overlap them and stand back to look at them. Squint. As your vision dissolves the pattern, you'll see whether your combination is pleasing or not.

4. How to Customize Accents

A pre-made accent can be perfect for your page as is, but sometimes you might want to take it to the next level. One way to customize an accent is to layer its images. You start with two accents, cut one accent into discrete images. Now glue those cut images onto the intact accent at different heights. For example, if you had a tag with two roses on it, you might cut out the roses from one tag and use a Pop dot to glue them on the second tag at various heights.

You can also customize an accent by adding micro beads, glitter, embossing powder or a three-dimensional glue like Diamond Glaze. Wrapping fibre or wire around an accent is another way to customize it. Or you could alter the accent's colour by painting it with walnut ink or acrylic paint.

How about adding a brad or a button or an eyelet to an accent to customize it? Sometimes simply matting an accent or framing it will make an accent more interesting.

5. How to Scraplift Any Scrapbook Page

The value of any idea book comes with our ability to use what we see. Scraplifting is a perfectly permissible to learn new techniques, create new layouts and try on new design styles. Start by tracing the model scrapbook page from a magazine or book. It is the easiest way to reduce a page to simple elements. Begin with the page outline. Then add the photos. Finally, note the embellishments. For the most straightforward scraplift, trade each element for one of another colour or pattern. For example, if the page you are scraplifting has a blue plaid, exchange it for a red plaid or a patterned paper. If your model page has raffia tied across the bottom of the photo mat, try ribbon or a row of eyelets. Make special note of the lines formed by page elements. Do the elements make a strong vertical or horizontal or diagonal line? For best results, remember to keep the dimensions of elements close to their original size.

6. How to Use Three Dimensional Glue

Try using Diamond Glaze to make your own embellishments. (Diamond Glaze is the name of a three-dimensional liquid glue that hardens to a hard, shiny and clear finish. A similar product is called Crystal Lacquer.) You can flood any wire shape with the glue. You can top any paper or fibre with the glue to create a shiny, stiff finish. And you can pour the glue on a punched shape cut out of a transparency, wait until it dries, and peel off the transparency to create a clear, three-dimensional accent. Pour Diamond Glaze onto a photo to make it look as though you covered the picture with a clear page pebble.

7. How To and Why You Want To Overlap Your Page Elements

In an article for Hot Off the Press, Angie Felix writes, 'Overlapping allows the pieces to connect, both physically and aesthetically.' Overlapping gives you the opportunity to use larger elements for more impact. When pieces are overlapped, they create a path for the eye to follow which makes your layout more pleasing. Overlapping is also a great "faux" cropping tool. Overlap a portion of the photo you'd rather not be seen with an embellishment or another photo so that you "crop" out the unwanted portion of your image. Play with various overlapping options before you glue your elements down.

8. How to Print Your Journaling on Less Than a Full Sheet of Paper

Here's how to fit your journaling on a scrap of paper: 1.) print your journaling on a piece of waste paper 2.) adjust the margins and size until the journaling is right for your layout 3.) cut a piece of scrapbook paper large enough just for your journaling 4.) use a temporary adhesive and attach the 'good' paper over the journaling on the whole sheet of your waste paper being especially careful to get the top edge firmly secured 5.) run the whole sheet of paper through your printer.

9. How To Dry Emboss

To dry emboss a frame around a photo, cut a piece of thick cardstock (you can glue two thinner pieces together) the size you want for your embossed frame. Position the thick card under the cardstock you wish to emboss. Rub the cardstock to be embossed with wax paper to make the stylus glide over it. Lightly press around the edge of the thick card with a stylus to form an impression. Don't own a stylus? You can use a knitting needle point or the rounded tip of a paintbrush instead.