I created a couple of pages of strips, some decorative, some words or phrases. I suppose you could print them and add them to your photos in a Project Life style book, but my intention is to use them on scrapbook layouts. This is what they look like – again, since I made them for ME, they are things I know I will use. Some of the phrases are more British, but then after nearly 20 years here that makes sense. There are only a couple you may not get immediately – CRACKING (as in “Cracking cheese, Gromit!”) is used similar to Awesome or Great, as is ACE, SMASHING and BRILLIANT (although you can surely use it in a more literal way, as in Bright, either in terms of brain-power or like bright white or a bright sun.)
Now I’m not kidding myself – these were super-simple to make. Obviously you can make your own, in fonts you like and words you like with no more than a basic word processing program. But you might appreciate NOT having to type it all out, so I’ll add them for you – the letter/number/decorative strips are here, and the stencil words here.
The more interesting bit is what you can do with them, although again, this is not earth-shatteringly original stuff. You may still appreciate seeing my samples:
All of those were altered with various mixed-media like stuff, inks, sprays, stamps, stencils…
This one was first cut into a banner shape, then coloured with Distress ink, then a couple of spray inks were flicked over the top:
You can see I printed on some linen paper – lovely stuff, really holds the printer ink, and it was not expensive at all. Not as heavy as cardstock weight but more than printer paper.
This one I inked then stamped over:
A tiny text stamp in a slightly darker colour, then I punched out the butterfly for some added interest.
This was stamped with a grid, and I rounded two corners to make it look more like a tab:
This was masked – you can see in the final sample above I also drew around the masked areas:
This one I used a baking grid and spray ink:
And then of course the little banner made from the words:
So there is a lot of scope for you to customize these. And of course they would work perfectly printed over light patterned paper as well, and could also be printed two images per page to make them much smaller.
Have fun…I am LOL!
