A Pretty Talent Blog: Scrapbooking 3: Matting, Borders & Punching

I am super excited about today's blog, because in this blog I will show you just about everything you'll ever need to know to make your scrapping a real pleasure. Of course there are loads more tricks, but with today's lesson you will be able to carry on on your own and make a myriad of page layouts to take the breath away. We have looked at frames, but today I am going to teach you about matting. I will also show you how to use borders and then we'll wet our feet in punching shapes and letters with punches. Hold on to your wallets, for this can become a very expensive hobby ;-)

I am working with two very special photos in today's layout. The little girl in the photos had been born near midnight the preceding day and this was the morning of the day following her birth. This is the first meeting between the proud grandparents and their youngest grandchild. This is why the photos have once again been blown up to A4 size. I love working with huge photos, but it does not leave you a lot of space for decorations. The grandfather fills most of the space in the photos and I decide to use the colour scheme in his shirt to dictate the colour scheme of the layout.

Fitting the photos on the pages, I notice that it would be beneficial to trim the 'dead' space away. This focuses the attention on the people and has the added advantage of creating more space in the layout to add pretty elements.

I want to double-mat these photos and need to find two complimentary colours to serve as matting.

When framing a photograph, the paper frame goes over the edges of the photo. When matting the photo, the photo goes on top and the paper mat goes behind the photo. For this reason I choose to do a fancy pattern on the edges of the photos. I use the rotary wheel in the photo for this purpose, although you can also find a variety of scissors on the market that will do much the same thing.

By pressing the button on the back, I can tilt the head to various degrees, making it even easier to work the cutting wheel with precision.

Turning the orange wheel at the top moves the blade out. This is a very nifty safety feature.

Lay your metal ruler down in the right place so you can trim the dead space away. Run the wheel of the rotor cutter along the edge of the ruler.

I trimmed all four sides of the photo in this manner and ended up with this curved pattern all around the edges of the photo. At the same time both photos were cropped to measure 23 x 19 cm.

I now need to decide which mat will go on top and which at the bottom. I test both layouts to see which I like best. I opted to have the darker colour at the bottom. You might feel differently. This is a matter of personal choice and either could be right.

I use a metal ruler and craft knife to crop the lighter coloured matting to measure 24 x 20 cm.

Next up is the darker matting. This is cropped to measure 25 x 21 cm. This means that each layer is only 1 cm larger than the preceding layer. This will give me an increase of half a cm all around for each layer.

I test to see if I like the end result. I do and am free to continue.

I will now cut lengths from the double-sided tape to stick the layers down on top of each other.

I tape the photo first and stick it on the lighter matting.

I then tape the matting and stick it to the darker matting.

I refrain from sticking any elements down until I have planned the whole layout and tested it. Therefore I now set the photos aside to punch the journaling out of the lighter coloured matting. I use the off-cuts for this purpose.

I decide it would be more interesting to have the letters raised and use double-sided 3D squares to achieve this. Small as the squares are, they are still too big and I need to cut them in half using the craft knife.

These sticky half-squares are very difficult to get in place and you might want to use tweezers for the purpose.

With the journal-ing done, I turn my attention to borders. I find a cardboard sheet in a colour that will compliment my page quite nicely. I cut two strips of 3 cm x 12" each. I also find these frilly borders in my stash. You already know that I don't discard anything, but save it for later use. These border were cut from the cover pages of paper pads. I find them perfect for today's project.

I stick double-sided tape to the backs of all four of the borders.

I then decide to stick the frilly borders on top of the plain ones.

It is time to bring all the elements together and I quickly add double-sided tape to all the pieces that were not taped before.

I decide to make more of the flower design on one of my background papers. It is after all a baby girl! I go in search of my selection of paper punches with flower designs in different sizes and styles. Of all of my punches, these are the ones I use most often. They were truly a great investment.

I use off-cuts from the papers used in the matting to punch a number of flowers.

I layer my punched-out flowers on top of each other, alternating sizes, colours and styles to keep it interesting.

I will use the trusted split pins to attach the different layers of the flowers to each other, as well as to attach the flowers to the pages.

I use an awl to make a hole through the centres of the flowers and to line them up to receive the split pins.

I am satisfied with the layout and decide to start attaching all the elements. The flowers are lying upside down to keep the split pins from sliding out at this stage. I pull the backing papers off the double-sided tape on the matted phots, the borders and the mounted journaling to stick them down.