Hello! I am so excited to be joining you at TPC Magazine. My goal is to focus on sharing some ideas of how to stretch our supplies by using different media to create beautiful cards. This week I wanted to share one of my favorite techniques: paper piecing.
Paper piecing uses colored or patterned paper to color images by substituting pieces of patterned or colored paper for images you would color with other media. One reason I love this technique is that it allows me to add texture or details through the use of patterned paper, but I love that it helps me use scraps in my crafty stash! I am sharing two cards with you today that were made in basically the same way with one big–one was primarily colored by coloring in the main image with markers, while the second was created with paper piecing.
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I attempted to keep the color scheme (red, pink, gray and white) and the background (circular frames ink smooshed and added behind the floral die cut and stamped image. This way you can see the differences between the two media.
Coloring with markers
I used a piece of previously ink smooshed piece of watercolor paper to stamp on the floral image.. After stamping the image with black ink and then heat embossing, I colored in the floral images with a variety of red, pink and gray markers. I then used a silver gel pen to color in the baby’s breath (large circular elements). The image was die cut.
After ink smooshing a piece of watercolor paper with some fuchsia spray, pink and red ink mixed with water and letting it dry, I used several fancy nesting circle dies to cut out two circular frames while keeping the inside die cut circles and layers. I stamped a sentiment from the floral stamp set with more black ink and heat embossed it with the same powder.
These were glued onto an A2-sized white card base and the pieces of the circle frames that were too big were cut off to make everything fit inside the card. I then glued the floral image onto the card and cut off the pieces that stuck out so that everything fit inside the card. I decided to ink blend the edges of the cardbase with residual red ink on my ink blending foam and finally added some dark gray gems onto the cardbase for some extra bling.
Paper Piecing
After stamping and heat embossing the same floral image on more watercolor paper, I stamped parts of the floral image on a variety of pink, red, and gray papers in my stash, including some leftover pink gel press pulls and a piece of Yupo paper I had colored with dark pink alcohol ink. After each piece was stamped, I heat embossed it with the same embossing power I used for the rest of the card and then fussy cut it. The various elements were glued onto the floral image to color in the leaves (gray papers) and flowers (red patterned paper, alcohol inked Yupo paper, pink gel press pulls). After everything was glued down and the glue had dried, I die cut the floral image with the corresponding die.
I cheated a little and added some gray marker to some of the lighter gray flowers as I was using two pieces of gray paper and I wanted the leaves to be the same intensity of color. I also cheated a little on the little red bud towards the bottom of the floral image and colored it red as I didn’t want to deal with fussy cutting something so small. I used the same dark gray gems to color in the baby’s breath and the anthers (three circles) coming out of the bottom and top most flowers.
As with the first card, I glued the fancy nesting circle die cut frames onto a white A2-sized card base and then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment. The overhang of the frames were trimmed off. The floral image was then glued onto the card and the overhang was trimmed off again. I ink blended around the edges of this card base, added some pink watercolor splatters, and added just a couple of the gray gems to try replicate the gem placement of the first card.
I hope this has has inspired you to try some paper piecing and would love for you to share them with me. Thanks for reading!
Anna York is from Oregon, US. She has been writing for TPC since 2023. Anna started paper crafting in 2008, had a break while her kids were small and started cardmaking again in 2019. Anna mostly makes cards. Her paper projects are often made in sparkly, whimsical style and she loves colors.