Design Tip: Paper Inspiration

Hello all and happy Friday once again! Today I am sharing another design tip with you all. I first introduced this tip in my "Step Out of Your Comfort Zone" post. You can read it here. Number 10 on the list is one technique I love to do! It is using patterned paper to inspire your design and I do this all the time.  Patterned paper is such a great thing for inspiration. It has shapes, colors, and neat images!  I just created two brand new pages this week using this design technique which I will share below.

My first example is using a piece of Studio Calico paper and cutting shapes which fit exactly inside each ray. First let me show you the paper before I explain how I did it.

Studio Calico - Classic Calico Collection - 12 x 12 Double Sided Paper - Plano
Scrapbook.com

As you can see this is sort of a grid-like sun ray paper. I measured, traced and cut out pieces of paper that would fit into five sections of the rays. Here I used the entire paper as my inspiration. My whole design was a result of this super cool patterned paper. Thanks Studio Calico for making this neat paper. Here's my scrapbook page!

In my second example I used a piece of patterned paper as my main inspiration. I really haven't done a large scale banner page yet and have been wanting to soooo badly. Here is my inspiration!!

Crate Paper - School Spirit Collection - 12 x 12 Double Sided Paper - Pep Rally
Scrapbook.com

In my page below you will see I extended my banner all the way across, although I used a little bit more curves in my banner. I also used colors similar to this paper to create my page.  I had a blast creating this page because it was a bit more freestyle than my normal graphic style.

So, have you used paper to inspire your pages yet? You really should! Send me examples of this if you like at scrappingpam73@yahoo.com . Have a great day and weekend!!!!!!!