Five Fridays #25 – Fun Ways to Strip

Hehe…that got your attention, huh? LOL

I am a day late but hey, I am posting it anyways. As a scrapbooker I always have loads of strips of paper scraps leftover from projects. Most of these strips are about 1″ wide or smaller and usually are 12″ long. Here are five projects using strips!

Make a border around your page by layering strips to create a frame.

Punch them!

Fold a strip in half, lengthwise. A Scor-It will easily fold the strip in half –precision is not necessary, just as long as you have a crisp crease. Use a circle punch to punch partial circles from the strip, along the crease. If you have the crease halfway into the punch, then you will get a circle when you unfold the paper so make sure your crease is about 1/4 of the way into the punch. Punch, unfold, and you'll have tiny leaves! (I'll post a tutorial on this later)

Here I used the leaves to make a strawberry (strawberry is a heart punch):

Use the same technique to create flowers. Use with an oval punch to create long blades of grass…lots of possibilities!

Layer the strips to make a mat for a title:

Here I distressed the edges of the strips, inked them, and then splayed them out on the page and glued.

Create a layout. I've used this design several times because I find it a good solution to the strip problem. Here are three different interpretations of the same design, all using strips between 4″ and 3/4″ wide.

Cut them up. Use shorter lengths of strips to create accents on a page:

Or cut or punch a scalloped border on one and lay it across the page:

Hope these ideas inspire you to start “stripping” – in the scrappy way of course! LOL Some of the pages above are from my “Twenty Pages In One Day” class I am teaching today at Collective Journey in Redlands, CA (there is still room–class starts at 11am and you are welcome to come late or get a kit). I am also teaching it at Pink Pineapple Scrapbooks on June 14th.

Author: Jennifer Priest

It started with jewelry, beading, sewing, home decor, painting, basket weaving, pottery, and cross-stitch. Marry that to an entrepreneurial spirit & at 9 years old a girl is selling her wares at craft fairs as far as her parents and grandparents would drive her. These days, Jennifer enjoys crafts of all genres from sewing to scrapbooking to jewelry with a little dabbling in the mixed media world. Her style is approachable and she wants everyone who sees her work to feel that they too can embrace creativity and make their home and life beautiful.