Add Color and Texture with Scraps

Most of us are paper lovers...we love all the pretty patterns, textures, colors!  This beauty comes at a price, so we loathe wasting even the smallest "usable" piece.  A very popular paper crafting technique these days is "paper piecing" where stampers use multiple images, stamped on a variety of papers, to create a final, colorful image.

I began this fun project with scraps from my Paper Made Bakery kit for April called "A Walk on the Bright Side", which is full of great products from Lawn Fawn and loaded with fun embellishments.  For this project I used a stamp set from Paper Smooches, which isn't in the Paper Made Bakery kit (Lawn Fawn's "You've Got Mail" is the set included with that kit).  The fresh spring colors and patterns in this 6x6 petite paper pad are perfect for this kind of technique, and for card making in general.

Here's one of the images I paper pieced.  I stamped the cute little rooster three times on different paper scraps.  Notice that I didn't even bother to stamp the entire rooster on the melon colored paper?  I only want this paper for his comb, so I didn't bother wasting any more paper than necessary!  When I needed white for images, I simply used the back of the patterned paper.  Waste not, want not...

I used scraps on every image in this card, including the freehand pieces I used to create the curtains, sun, "sky", and tablecloth.  In the photo above I show how I stamped the toaster image onto the table first providing a sort of background anchor for the paper pieced image I created with the toast popping out of the toaster.  I lightly outlined all the pieces that weren't stamped with black ink to give them all a visual "edge".  That little rooster started out perfectly white, but I decided he needed to "tone it down a little", so I smudged him with leftover Tea Dye Distress Ink that was in my sponge dauber.


The panel above was layered onto a pretty lavender piece, which was then mounted onto a fresh white card made of Neenah Classic Crest in Solar White. As a final touch, I added "googly eyes" to Mr. Toast for some fun interest.  The sentiment "This calls for a toast" is the perfect pun for the recipient of this card!


Have a wonderful day!