Scrapbooking How to: Creating a Background of Small Shapes

Instead of using a square or rectangle for a large background, try mixing it up with a square or rectangle background made up of small shapes.

I was in the mood to play with this layout. I could have just made a simple square background for the right page, but I always love trying to find a way to incorporate the theme of my layout into the design.

To go with my circus theme, I used lots and lots of triangles along with some hand stitching to create a banner background. To do this I followed these steps...

1. Used a pencil to draw the lines for each row of triangles.

I knew that if I tried to eyeball this without measuring, I would end up with a crooked background. I wasn't going to put all that time into adhering those triangles unless I knew it was perfect from the get go.

I've learned that lesson the hard way a time or two!

2. Adhere my triangles on top of the pencil lines.

3. Add another pencil line over the tops of the triangles.

These are the lines that I will use as a guide for my stitching. They are about 1/8" from the top side of the triangles.

4. Pierce my holes for stitching.

I made sure, since my triangles overlap onto each other, that I wasn't stitching over the bottom of the banners that is hanging over the top, so I do not pierce holes on the triangle point from above. (See photo above or below.)

5. Add my hand-stitched lines.

Each stitched line has a different length. Some are longer, some are shorter. There really isn't a technical reason for that other than I liked the look of having different lengths more than I did having them all the same.

Using shapes in place of a square or rectangle background can add a lot of interest and detail to your layout. Try using:

• squares

• circles

• hearts

• stars

• arrows

• triangles

• diamonds

• flowers

• hexagons

There are so many shape possibilities and design opportunities!

This is especially a good idea for using a favorite sketch of yours that you are looking to change up from the last time you used it.

To finish my layout, I added in some tickets and circus-y themed embellishments.

The next time you are looking to change things up, I challenge you to play around with a shape background.