Scrapbooking Stickers

Colour Blocking

Part 1

By Jennifer Gormly
 

Colour Blocking is known for its clean, simple lines. It's a great technique for using up those bits of scrap papers you have lying around. The following page was quick to assemble and employs the colour blocking technique.
 
 

A large number of colour blocking templates are available, but you can use this technique without them. Begin by choosing your photos, cropping them to size and matting them. I decided to use a single photo which I cropped and then framed.

 
I then selected my papers. As this is a Christmas layout, I chose red cardstock for my background and scraps of various green Christmas papers I had leftover from other projects. The arrangement of this layout was entirely governed by the size and shape of these scraps.
 

I selected the paper for the top left corner and cut out a rectangle. Again, the size and shape of this rectangle was governed by the size of the scraps I had to work with. Once I had my first piece in place, I simply worked clockwise around the page cutting rectangles to fit the spaces as I went.
 

I also cut a thin rectangle of one of the patterned papers to go directly under my photo. On this I placed a smaller rectangle of white cardstock with torn edges for my title.
 

I finished off the page by placing a small holly accent cut from one of my papers in the bottom right corner of my photo. I also added Suzy's Zoo Tillamook Christmas Mouse stickers to the bottom right rectangle of my page.

 
This is one of the simplest ways to employ colour blocking. When you are comfortable with the technique, try including more photos and embellishing your patterned papers!
 

 

If you would like to have any of your designs included in our resource centre, please email them to us at [email protected] (please make sure all files are .jpg or .gif).