this is a card i made with the maya road chipboard keychain.

at a recent crop, kim was saying she thought it would be really difficult to trace the little icons onto your patterned paper and then cut them out to adhere to the chipboard…to which meredith responded “you don’t have to cut them all perfect, just sand the edges!” and i said that i usually just leave them as is or paint them. it ended up getting the wheels turning in my mind. which technique was better? quickest? easiest?

well.

i am a pretty impulsive scrapbooker. i like to bust stuff out with the quickness. i don’t hem and haw over placement, i just stick it down and make it work. so when i sat down to make these little guys i decided i was going to put both of the techniques to the test. take the time to try something new. the result? they are BOTH time consuming. they both take lots of practice. but they are both totally worth it. i mean, who doesn’t love a lady shape covered in ninguins??

to cover your chipboard shapes with patterned paper, i find it’s easiest to trace the image and cut it out with fine tip scissors (tonic and cutterbee are both great options). place the paper pattern side down, then place your chipboard piece face down as well and trace the outline. when you begin to cut, you want to make sure you stay inside of the lines, or else the paper will be larger than the chip piece. to work the curved edges, make sure you are turning your paper and not your scissors. you could also trace the image with an exacto knife, i just didn’t have one with me so i braved the scissor technique (and honestly i think that is easier, but it could just be me). next i used 3m tacky glue to adhere the paper to the chipboard, making sure to work the glue around all the edges. next you can sand the edges to give it that white, rugged look. this will also cover any mistakes you made while cutting. i used a black nail file (the kind you would use for acrylic nails) as well as a metal file to get inside the smaller spaces. when sanding, it’s all about the angle, filing in one direction (just like your nails) and letting the chipboard and file do the work for you, as opposed to sawing at the paper and forcing it to separate the chipboard layers and bending the legs of your little people (both of which happened to me). i also found the coarser the file the better.

i think someday i will be able to work the chipboard flawlessly, but for now i’m content with a bit of an unkempt, raw flavor. i think it gives the piece a bit more personality, and a bit more of me. which is what crafting is all about

Kristina

Tags: kc, kristina contes, sanding chipboard, sanding paper, trimming paper

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Design Team, Scrapbooking, Techniques. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.