Scrapbook Page Layouts Using Dies

There are many different ways to develope your scrapbook page layouts. One very interesting way is to use simple dies. I am not speaking about dyes as in dying your clothes or hair with some different colors. What I am speaking about are those little instruments that can be used to punch out a design out of paper. What these dies are, simply put, are a shape of a desgn that gets cut out of the paper. 

How do you use dies? Dies are used to make your scrapbooking pages pop out. By using these little design cut-outs you can add a lot charater and deminsion to your pages. Shapes such as flowers or others provide appeal and be what matches and ties the content of your particular page together. These designs can add tremendous impact and beauty. The best part it is they are very simple to do.

What is involved in using dies? Go to your local hobby shop such as Hobby Lobby

 

 select a design or several. Start with simple, basic designs. Then, just as an example, take a die in the form of a flower. You should use a flat type of flower such as a lily. Sometimes these dies will come as a set of three, each progressively smaller. If you use a set of 3 dies then cut out the different sizes. One large, medium and small size. Then take the large size and past on top the medium size and follow that by doing the same with the smallest size. However, be careful to only glue the center area of each size lily. The reason is you want the lily stack to provide a 3-demensional effect. 

Now, once you have several cut and pasted together you are ready to start developing your scrapbook page layouts. Balance is what provides the artistic appeal. The effect you want is to draw the eye into the center of the page using the lilies. The way this works is understanding how we are trained from birth to look at things. First, we look at the upper left corner of a page. Then we start to look down towards the right of the page. And finally we work our way down to the bottom right of the page. So, the way to naturally work with the eye-brain training is to place 3 lilies at top left and then progress fewer and fewer from left-to-right in clockwise fashion. 

I will revisit this at another time. For now, just enjoy the experience!