How to Use Patterned Paper as an Embellishment by Jaclyn Rench

Design Team member Jaclyn Rench is sharing some fantastic tips for taking your patterned paper to a new level.

Here's Jaclyn...

This month's Main kit is a new favorite of mine.  There are so many pretty pieces and elements included, but the patterned papers are definitely at the top of my love list!  I am especially fond of the 'Sweet Rose' paper from the Maggie Holmes/Crate Paper Bloom collection. 

While this paper could certainly stand on it's own, I thought I'd share with you a technique that I often like to use for this type and style of paper.  It involves using the paper as my embellishment!

The first step in making your patterned paper work in this way is to cut apart all of the elements.  This page is full of straight lines, so with a paper trimmer and/or pair of scissors, you can make quick work of this step.

Now you are left with a pretty pile of vintage-looking tags, receipts, tickets and other assorted ephemera.  Look closely at the elements to see how you can make them look even more realistic.  For instance, this soft pink ticket had white circles printed over the '01' and '02' to represented punched holes.  I used a hole punch to go over those white circles and create actual holes that give more character and realism to my paper piece.

Another example, is on this black and white 'Bloom' tag.  It is printed with a staple.  To create more realism, texture and dimension, I used an actual staple to attach it to my page.

This washed green ticket has much more presence on the page when it's hole punched and tied with a length of rustic twine.

And like the first example, I again reached for my hole punch to give these tickets a more realistic look.  I notched the top edge of each ticket, with my hole punch, making them look as if they were just torn from an actual roll of vintage tickets.

Some simple punching, cutting and embellishment takes this patterned paper to a whole other level, and is quite quick and easy to do.  This technique makes even more of a statement when those pieces are layered together.  Here's a close of look of how I implemented this technique on a page...

And a full look at the completed page...

I hope you'll give this fun technique a try and share with us, your results!

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