[Missy]

Scrapbooking Tutorial- Using Overlays

Using Overlays can make quick work out of a page. It helps frame pics whale at thesame time creating a simple layout Here's one I did this weekend. You can use pre made overlays or make your own. I chose to make one myself to fit my 5 X7 page.

Also for this page of kitties (2 of mine, 2 pics mom sent of hers *dspencer*, and 2 of my grandmothers as well). The subjects in pics sometimes seem to be overwhelmed by the surroundings in the pics. Pictures such as these lend themselves easily to cropping.

Step 1 Gather the supplies you will need.
For this project, I used:
Cardstock- black and lt blue
Pics
Xacto Knife
Mounting tape - looks like double sides foam tape
Cutting Mat
Paper Slicer
Ruler
Pencil
Mini Stickers
Gel Pens - Metallic Pastel Blue
Double Sided Tape
Xyron machine * in lieu of this you could just as easily use a
glue stick or such
Brass Fasteners
1/8 " Hole punch

 

[Missy]

Step 2 Cutting the overlay

Create your overlay by lightly tracing a design onto your piece of cardstock (mine was 5 X 7, if you need to cut it to size before tracing to make it easier to center your designs onto it). I chose to trace a premade overlay for a 12 x 12 page. However, if you are good at freehand, you might chose to vary your designs to circles (instead of squares as in my example), octogons, freeform shapes, etc, or a variety there of.

Carefully cut out the shapes using an Xacto knife being sure to use a cutting mat under your cardstock.

 

[Missy]

Step 3 Cut your background paper

If necessary, you may have to cut your background paper to the same size as your overlay, as in my example my cardstock was a 8.5 x 11, and i needed it to be 5 x 7.

 

[Missy]

Step 4 Trace your overlay

Trace your overlay lightly onto the background paper. This will aide in placeing your cropped photos later.

 

[Missy]

Step 5 Crop your pics

Crop your pics to fit your overlay. The overlay will act as a frame for your pics, but be sure to cut your pics to fit the openings of the over lay, only slightly larger. You may want to lay your over lay on top of the pics to decide accurately on the size the pics will need to be cropped to.

 

[Missy]

Step 6 Decide on your arrangement of the pics

Arrange your pics (without glue or tape) under the over lay until you find an arrangement that pleases you. This will be a good time too to make sure the cropped pics will fit well under the overlay neatly.

 

[Missy]

Step 7 Rearrange the Pics again

Rearrange the pics once again to be sure you like the arrangement. Once you are satisfied, adhere your pics to the background laying them over the traced squares. If you need to you can elongate your openings on the overlay (see my pics in the followiong steps to see what I mean, i made some openings larger on the overlay). Using Xyron machine, apply adhesive to the back of the overlay. Very carefully apply the overlay now to the pics mounted on the background paper.

 

[Missy]

Step 8 Practice your Journalling or Title

Practice your Journalling onto scrap paper to avoid mistakes on the finished product. Once you are satisfied with your title and journalling, move on to journalling or titleing on your journal or title blocks.

 

[Missy]

Step 9 Mat your embellishments

Mat your embellishments as desired. I chose to do without a journal box and simply wrote the cats names under their pictures. I chose to make my Title box as simple as possible as well.

 

[Missy]

Step 10 Attatch your embellishments to your page

Attatch your embelllishments to your page as desired. I used mounting tape to add dimensions to the titlae block and to the matted stickers. I added brass fasteners to the corners by using a hole punch to punch holes for the "legs" of the fasteners to fit through. The brass fasteners picked up the metallic look of the pen I used in the Title and the names under the pics.

 

[Missy]

Step 11 Admire your finished product!!!

In Step 10 and Step 11 you can see that I made a few of the squares into longer rectangles (for pics and title block) by removing the pieces of cardstock between the cut out squares.