Today I'm going to share the step-by-step process of my latest layout "The Personal is Political". We are going to look at how to print directly on your layout, and creating fun geometric patterns with simple punches.
**Warning: Photo Heavy**
You can read a little more about the layout, and why it was so special here.
To create the journaling directly on my layout: I started out with a sheet of kraft cardstock which I cut down to 8.5x11. I typed up my journaling in MS word (any word processing program will do). You can pick up that cool typewriter font here. I used the 'print preview' function to determine if my journaling was going to line up where I wanted it. When I was satisfied, I printed directly on the 8.5x11 sheet of kraft cardstock. I also wanted a slim white border around my layout, so I trimmed the sheet down about 1/4" on all sides and mounted it on white cardstock.
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Now on to embellishing! Using simple punches to create fun geometric embellishments is fun and easy. I grabbed two circle punches: 1 3/8" and 1 1/2", and a square punch 1 3/4" (not pictured).
First we will make the square with the circle inside. Grab your larger punch (1 1/2") and punch a hole in your paper. Try not to punch it too close to the edge of your paper, we need room around the entire circle.
You should be left with your paper looking like this:
Now pick up that same sheet of paper, along with your square punch. Slide your paper into your punch so that the circle is lined up evenly in the center of your square punch.
Once you punch the square, you should be left with a little piece that looks like this:
Repeat this process as many times as you'd like to create the above shape. Because of the odd shape, I decided that the easiest way to adhere these would be with my Xyron machine, but if you're good with liquid glue or a tape runner you can definitely use those as well.
Now to lay those shapes out on the layout. I put a sheet of white scrap paper along my layout in order to make sure the shapes were in a straight line, and then lined the outside ones up first. Because the frame was wider than the other squares, I lined up the frame before adhering the center two shapes so that there would be the same amount of space between all four elements.
And here is what it looked like once those were lined up and adhered down:
To create the inside circles, grab the smaller punch and use it on a coordinating sheet of paper (or a photo in the case of the frame element). Remember that its much easier to see what you are punching if you flip the punch over so that the opening at the bottom is what you are looking at when you punch.
Adhere these circles to the inside of your square elements, leaving a little bit of room around each of the circles. Then add whatever other embellishments you're feeling like using, round buttons and brads would definitely go well, along with any other simple geometric pattern.
To finish up the layout, I used thickers for the title, and glued down a little bit of black star confetti to make it feel a little bit more magical.
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Thanks for taking this step-by-step journey with me!
