This file includes printed paper, economical use of paper and making your own "ShortCuts".

Economical Use of Paper

• Use paper just to add accent to pages.
• If using a triangle behind a photo, cut out the part that won't show, and use it elsewhere...you can do this over and over producing smaller triangles each time. When you get very small triangles use them to border a page like you would little squares in the FastFormula™ book or use one in each corner and draw wave borderlines out from behind them to "frame" a page.
• Save your scraps and organize them by color. No scrap is too small!
• When making a mat for photos, instead of using the whole solid paper, cut the inside of the mat. No one can see it anyway. This is easy when using the circle cutter to make circular mats. This will also make your album pages lighter. You could use punches if they reach far enough into the mat to not show on the edges.
• Cut your scraps of paper into little triangles. These can be used randomly around a page, as a mosaic border and behind the corners of photos.
• Get in the habit of checking your scraps before you cut a new sheet.
• When cutting out of a full sheet, always try to leave a long straight edge so that when you do need a long strip you have one.

Printed Paper Ideas

Deep Blue Star:

• Makes great borders using strip just wide enough to get one row of stars, mount on strip of Cranberry paper that is about 1/2" wide, and use around page as border. Also can use on white, Cranberry or Navy, etc. really classy on military pages.
• One year I put it behind the 'stencils' of the red die-cut letters for "4th of July".
• I seem to always use it somewhere for 4th of July. Even if it's just a few stars punched out.
• Punch out stars for a night scene, prom, or patriotic holiday
• use for an adult's birthday
• Use as matting and decoration on military pages
• Use for sailor boy pictures (or girl)
• Use for snow and scenery photos
• Cut out stars from the templates and mount on cranberry paper, then cut about 1/4 inch outside the original star
• Use with the blue gingham and coordinating colors to make a quilt pattern using the octagon template.
• I did a two page spread of my son and several of his friends who are "regulars" at our house and titled it "All Star Kids". Mounted the photos so that there was a "frame" of stars around each picture.
• Use the printed star paper to do a Halloween sky...hang a moon or ghost in it.
• Use it for Christmas Pageant photos, especially outdoor pageants.
• Be sure you use some with the golden yellow color paper. It is a smashing combination.
• For my granddaughter's preschool play photos, I used the yellow and the star print to make a curtain page. Use the scallop borderline to make the top and make a sway pattern to fit the page. Make the yellow about 1/4 inch larger than the stars and put the stars on top.
• Anything nautical (also the navy with stars anchor die-cut) and I used it to mat photos of a Veteran's Day celebration I used the star paper as mat with the school day pages. A lot of the class pictures have the American flag in it.
• Try it as a triangle in the upper corner for tent camping photos. I had silhouetted the tent and used the triangle with stars behind it.
• Use it as a 3/4" border around a camping/outdoors/night-time page. It really is wonderful, one of my favorites.

Gingham:

• Matting photos with the gingham on the diagonal creates a completely different look--more like a trellis design. The nautical blue gingham looks great with sunflower or other yellow flower stickers.
• I use green gingham in outdoor pictures, my husband and I like to hike and they look great with forests pictures. They make good squares for titling with squares of complimentary color. I also used the red and green gingham for my holiday open house flyer. I used the house punch and then placed a mini heart in center and pasted it on my flyer.
• I used the diagonal gingham strips like on the bottom of page 21 in Idea Book V. I didn't particularly like the page on my first look through, but when I looked closer and saw how she did the mats, I loved it. I have a double page spread of family Christmas photos matted that way. Those diagonal strips of gingham add just the right amount of pizzazz without taking away from my photos.
• You can adapt the idea on the bottom of page 52 in the #5 Idea Book for a lot of things. Try pink gingham on a black page for a baby girl; green gingham for a camping or cabin page; red for picking apples or valentines day; light blue for a baby boy; blue for a boating page.

Green Dot:

• Cut a 1 1/2 inch strip with the alpine scissors and placed along the bottom of a page for grass.
• Make a border down the side of two pages with green dot, mint, and lemon, each deckle cut with our antiques scissors. The colors were layered so that 1/4 inch of each color showed behind the other. Lemon was on top. On the top strip I placed baby animal stickers: geese, rabbits, and ducks. It was a sweet baby page, or would work for Easter.
• use the oval cutter to cut into Easer Egg shapes

Raspberry Hearts:

• Use for those special pages of friends and family at proms, weddings, and family events.
• decorate a special "I love you!" page with paper cut out in hearts matted with solid raspberry behind for contrast.
• use the circle cutter to create "bubbles" of love filled with your favorite photos
• dress up a baby page

Paper Idea

To give a parchment look to cream colored paper put ink from a brown pen on a make up sponge and rub along the edge of the paper. You can cut the paper with the deckle cutter first for a little different look.

Torn Paper

Torn strips of paper can be very effective when used in scrapbooks. They are a great way to make grass, mountains, etc. as a background for photos or at the bottom of the page. You can use two or more shades of greens or browns or a combination of the two. Shades of blue can be used to create the effect of distant mountains or even snow (I know that sounds odd but try tearing a couple of strips of deep blue star and deep blue gingham and trying it on a page).

It takes a little practice to tear the paper like you want. The printed paper will look totally different on the edge where you pull the paper down than it does on the edge of the other pieces where you were pulling up. One will have a white or fading out type edge. I like that look where the paper overlaps--especially if you are combining dark colors. With most paper it also tears differently depending on which direction of the paper you use and how fast you tear.

Making ShortCuts

(Note: This idea is for 8 1/2 x 11 paper.)Take 22 sheets of colored card stock or texture paper and cut using the following guides.  Divide the 22 sheets into three separate piles making sure each pile has the full variety of colors.  These will be for mounting and layering. There are many ways to cut the paper but here is one suggestion.  (I will describe the cutting of the first stack and then try to insert a diagram of how to cut all three stacks since the last two are a little hard to describe without seeing a drawing. I didn't show the measurements on the diagram, as they will depend on the size of paper you are using. In stack two the large rectangle at the bottom is about 4 1/2" wide and the two strips in the middle are each about 1 1/2" wide. In stack three the long lengthwise strip is about 4" wide and the three short strips in the upper right corner are about 4 1/2" long.)

Stack One - First cut two (1 inch wide) lengthwise strips from the paper. Next cut the remaining piece half in two crosswise to make two large triangles. Then cut one of the large rectangles into three strips.

NOTE: These drawings are NOT to scale.

More Ideas for Cutting ShortCuts

For triangles, I buy the Home Class Pre-cut triangles. They're pretty inexpensive and it's too difficult/time consuming for me to try to cut perfect triangles. This is what I do for the long strips. I take a 10x12 paper and cut a 3/8"x12" strip first. Then, I turn the paper around and cut a 1/2" strip since the width of our scrapbook pages are 11 1/2". This way, customers don't have to worry about trimming them if they want to place the long strip horizontally. If they decide to place it vertically, there'll be a 1/2" gap, but it doesn't look too bad especially if they do a shadow strip. Next, you just cut to make seven strips. The dimensions would be 1 3/8" x 11 1/2".
I keep the scraps (1 long skinny 3/8" strip, and one shorter 1/2" strip), and let customers help themselves to them during workshops. The long skinny one is great to place horizontally behind or on top of title blocks. Or they can stick one on top of a different colored ShortCut strip just 1/8" from the edge for a different look. (Mable in BC)