Portrait Pattern Play w/Lori Gentile

Hello Crate Paper blog readers! This is Lori Gentile with you to share my favorite way to use Crate Paper patterned paper on layouts....

The Essentials: Portrait Patterned Paper {June, Bouquet, Honeymoon, Pearls}, Portrait Chipboard Accents, Portrait Alpha Labels, Portrait Border Stickers

One of the things I love most about Crate Paper is that their collections include both large and small patterned papers. I love the flexibility this allows, as I am able to use the small patterns as neutral backgrounds and the large patterns for layering and embellishing. Large patterns present themselves as die-cut opportunities and as a lover of texture this really appeals to my design sense. By using the larger patterns as die cuts, I was able to create some rich texture on this page.

When I first saw the Bouquet paper I knew I would be using it for a wedding page and that I would be cutting out each of the delicate flowers to do so. Start by cutting out several individual, big and small, flowers in all three luscious colors.

Cut out one flower from the Honeymoon paper. If you think you will be using this paper as a background paper with all four edges showing, don’t cut a flower from the edge as I did. Cut one from somewhere closer to the middle, so it can be covered up and hidden by a separate sheet of paper.

I adore edged papers like this! The first thing you should do is cut around all four edges so as to follow the paper's scallop border design. Don't worry about cutting it perfect because you'll be bending and curling the edges of the paper and this erases any cutting errors.

Once you have everything cut out, take some time and curl forward the edges of your trimmed items to get that wonderful texture as you can see in the images above.

I added some border stickers to each side of the background paper and then took some time to cluster both flowers and chipboard accents together on my page. I then used wet glue to adhere the die cut flowers by adding just a tiny drop of it to the center of each flower. It leaves the sides free to remain bending upwards.

After you’ve adhered the side clusters in place, continue adding stickers to enhance the feel of the page along with some photos, a title and personalized journaling.

It doesn’t take long to cut out large patterns! Ultimately, the end effect is gorgeous, 3-dimensional texture! I hope you enjoyed seeing how I play with patterns!! I look forward to seeing you, again,next month.