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Friday, May 18, 2012

Serendipity Tutorial

This collage style card is so easy and there are no specific rules to follow. There are endless possibilities with various designs, color schemes, or themes such as: Christmas, Easter, Valentines, or Oriental that can be achieved with this beautiful technique. Have fun and let your imagination run wild!
Cardstock: Baja Blue - Stampin' Up and navy - Paper Studio. Sentiment from Stampin' up, also used pop dots on sentiment.
Cardstock: So Saffron - Stampin' Up and navy - Paper Studio. Sentiment from Stampin' up, also used pop dots on sentiment.
Serendipity: noun – coined by Horace Wolpole after the Three Princes of Serendip; a fairy tale in which the princes make discoveries.
1. A seeming gift for finding something good accidentally.

Paper Salad: Scraps of all types of paper, all shapes and sizes; “cut off pieces” left over after cutting cards, stamping mistakes that didn’t emboss correctly, etc.

Materials:
cardstock 8 ½ X 11
paper cutter
stamps
scissors
paper salad
metallic ink pads
glue stick, double stick tape or Xyron
3 ½ X 3 ½ square of cardstock to mount squares on
3 ¾ X 3 ¾ for frame around your serendipity piece

1.   I make these on black cardstock, but you can make them on any color you like. The first step is to use your 8 ½ X 11 sheet of cardstock and design a collage with paper salad. Begin placing paper salad randomly on the background cardstock. Metallic papers and other papers with nice textures look especially good. Tear some of the paper pieces, cut some with decorative scissors, or cut some straight. Don’t worry about the quality of your collage; the design really doesn’t matter, because you’re going to cut it up into squares anyway. Don’t cover the whole sheet, just stick bits here and there, leaving some background showing so you can stamp on it. (I run my paper salad through the Xyron machine, then cut and stick down.)

2.   When you have a pleasing arrangement of papers, stick it down with your choice of adhesive. 
 3.   Ink desired stamps and randomly stamp images on top of the papers and in the spaces between papers. You can emboss pigment or metallic inks if you like. I always stamp with metallic ink, and some of my favorite stamps are text/handwriting images. You don’t have to cover every bit of the paper with stamping, open areas are nice.
4.   Cut this large sheet into smaller squares. 1 ¼ inch or 1-inch squares work will on cards. I prefer the 1-inch size because it’s easier to cut on the paper cutter by using the lined grids. Accurate cutting is important so that the squares are all the same size. Getting these little squares exactly the same size does leave some room for error. If a few squares are too small, don’t use them. Embellishments such as charms or layers of stamped images can always hide areas that you don’t care for.
5.   When you’re finished cutting up squares, mix them all up and choose them randomly to piece back together. Select a color of cardstock on which to mount your squares. The squares can be arranged in any manor that appeals to you. One basic pattern is 3 rows across and 3 down.
 
6.   Glue arranged squares to cardstock leaving about a 1/8 inch border around them. You can layer this on another color paper which you apply directly to your card.
 7.   Your card can be embellished with any number of things like: charms, embossed images, or fibers.