I have a wonderful book called Creative Scrapbook Piecing by Marina du Plessis. I have obtained many ideas and great templates from this book, and I believe part 2 has just come out.
Scrapbook piecing is generally another term for paper piecing, and is a great technique which is not difficult, but it does require some time and patience. My first scrapbook piecing project was an idea that I took from Marina's book. My little girl of two got really messy one day eating chocolate ice cream and I could not resist snapping a few photo's of her to scrapbook. I saw my inspiration on page 180 of Marina's book, as I just loved the picture of the ice cream sundae. I will place a photo of my version of the layout on my blog and you can let me know what you think.
With scrapbook piecing, you basically build 3 dimensional shapes or figurines for your layouts. With paper piecing, you have to trace the pictures, and then cut them out and layer them on top of one another to get the 3 dimensional effect. In Creative Scrapbook Piecing, all the pictures are already broken down for you, so you arerely enlarge, copy and cut. If you have your own picture that you would like to piece together, it is a little more work, as you have to trace the outline, then retrace all the various bits that you would like to layer above it.
You can do the same thing with the lettering and headings on your layouts. By cutting out the letters for your heading and raising them slowly with 3D foam squares, you will really make it stand out on your layout.
The best way to make your 3 dimensional figurine is to first copy the template and then cut it out roughly. Place the traced template onto the colored cardstock of your choice and secure with adhesive putty. Carefully cut around the tracing, and then remove the copied templates and putty from the cardstock. Just repeat this process for all the pieces.
There is a software program available called 3D Arts and Crafts that can help you with scrapbook piecing. This software is ideal for doing scrapbook piecing with your photographs. It makes life much easier, as you just copy a photograph onto the screen, and then trace the elements with your mouse. The software will then print out the pieces for you to put together again on your scrapbook layout.
With scrapbook piecing, you can achieve stunning layouts with just a little more time and effort than normal. It will be well worth while for all those extra special photographs in your collection.
For more scrapbooking ideas and solutions, visit: http://scrapbookideasandsolutions.blogspot.com