Hello, Roadies! So nice to be back in the creative MR saddle again today. Thanks for this opportunity to share a project! My name is Megan Hoeppner, and today I’m here to share a quick way you can use a mini album page to create your own custom scrapbook-page backgrounds.
I just adore this chipboard camera album, which I recently featured in my CreativeLive class (thanks a million, Maya Road!).
I had one extra page of the album that I didn’t end up using in class, so I decided to put it to use as a template on a page.
To begin, I traced the album page on my cardstock in a few different places, using different shades of watercolor pencils.
Once I had what I felt was a nice balance of cameras in position, I used my water brush to blend and soften the traced lines, and I used watercolor paint to add the heart “lenses” in the centers of my cameras.
Another favorite MR item on my list is the little Polaroid-style frames.
I knew they were small enough that I could use them to add several pictures of my daughter’s birthday party without disrupting the design.
I used dimensional glaze to adhere the bitty frames to my photos, which dries clear so I knew there wouldn’t be a problem with visible glue marks. Wanting a bit more texture, I then stitched around the hearts using tone-on-tone embroidery floss strands.
And I added a few lines of handwritten journaling, using nothing more than my favorite journaling pen.
Just like that, my layout was complete, and I was completely happy with it. I hope there are aspects of this design that inspire you in your own creativity. If you have any ideas for taking these techniques and using them in different ways, please share. I just adore being inspired by others and seeing many different directions a single idea can be taken in. It’s one of my favorite things about crafting!
Quick Photo Editing Using Your Phone
Before I go, I thought I’d also provide a quick tutorial on you can get the bitty images for the Maya Road transparent frames using nothing more than a free app for your smartphone and a single sheet of 4x6 photo paper (unless you want to print more images than than).
Here’s how you do it to it:
1. Open PicStitch (download first if you don’t already have this free photo-collage app).
2. Select the 4-up photo grid.
3. It defaults to a 1:1 ratio (a square), so you’ll want to adjust the aspect ratio to 3x4
4. Tap the first box and tap “upload.”
5. Select the photo you want to use and apply any edits you wish to apply.
6. Tap “done” and check to make sure the spacing/cropping is to your liking.
You’re half way there. Here are a few more steps to complete the process.
1. Fill in the remaining three rectangles in the grid and save the image to your camera roll.
2. Repeat with a second set of images, following the same steps.
3. Start a new collage.
4. Select the two-up grid.
5. Adjust the aspect to 6x4.
6. Drop in the two collages you just created and print this image.
Now, all you have to do is cut the images to the size of the small frames and put them on your page.
Note: For the larger frame in the set, I simply cropped down a basic 4x6 image of my daughter using my scissors. Nothing fancy there.
That about covers it, Maya friends! Thanks you for making me feel so welcome in this community. I hope you enjoy giving these techniques a go, and I can’t wait to see what you continue doing with Maya Road delights in general. Your creativity is so inspiring!
Warmly,
Megan Hoeppner
meganhoeppner.com
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