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| Le finished product. |
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Basically, I was at Michael's doing some unrelated shopping and saw that they had scrapbook paper on sale for $0.16/sheet, as well as 12x12 scrapbook frames on sale for $3. Once I did the math, it took all of 10 seconds for my plan to form.
Read on for a full step-by-step...
The Ingredients:
- X-Acto Knife
- Scrapbook paper
- Scrapbook frames
- Printouts of what you want
- I created these in Photoshop. Since I couldn't print on a 12"x12" sheet, it took a little creativity to split the images onto two sheets.
- Time. I definitely underestimated how much time it would take to cut everything out.
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| Base-level X-Acto knife... perfect for the job. |
1. Decide on your phrases and make your templates.
This felt like a project in itself! I went through song lyrics, books, poems... I wanted things that had meaning to me but could also be fairly universally appreciated. Here's what I ended up with:
- "You can never be overdressed of overeducated" -Oscar Wilde
- "Oh, my my! Oh, hey hey!" -Big Parade by The Lumineers
- "All the lines we cast will bring us home" -Casting Lines by Jack's Mannequin
- "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" -Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2. Match up your scrapbook pages & designs.
You'll notice that I changed my mind about both of these. Here's what I found: contrasting colors work better, and big patterns (like the rainbows) really don't show up under small cutouts.
3. Cut a bitch.
This. Took. For. Ever. And your hands and arms and shoulders will hurt afterward. You've been warned.
My process was very unscientific: place the design over the scrapbook paper, hold it down with as much pressure as possible using one hand and X-Acto with as much pressure as possible using the other hand. Make sure you save all the cut out pieces, since you'll need to also cut out the insides of O's and E's and R's and whatnot.
4. Glue down those insides.
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| Note the change in base paper. |
Again, very unscientific. Place the cutout paper over the base paper. Add a little bit of glue (I favor Tacky) to the inside and place where it belongs. When you're all done, you'll have a really odd base paper.
5. Frame!
Notes & Tips
- You probably noticed that I ended up placing the cutouts over the rainbow base since it ended up looking better that way. The nice thing is that I can reuse the other sheet to make one for my office. Note that the only way you are able to do this is if you're very careful, since I found myself cutting into the discard pieces more often than not.
- The whole project (for these two) took about 4 hours start to finish.
- X-Acto also makes a curved blade that (in theory) makes it easier to cut cursive-type designs.
- I bought everything on sale, but based on the regular prices at Michael's, you can do this project for less than $8 per poster.
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