Techneek of the Week - Paper Flourish

Another uber-simple one from the brain of me...but I'm sick this week so I needed something small to ease me back into things!

But it's a good techneek none-the-less, and one that can be used in so many different ways, on so many different projects...that my kind of guy!

You will need:

Pen or pencil

Scissors

Scrap cardboard, chipboard or heavy weight cardstock

Chipboard flourish - to trace, or copy if you're not into doodling!

Some pattern paper from your stash

Step One: If you're confident enough to try your hand at doodling a swirl, go for it! Use your pencil and just go with the flow! If you don't like it, keep adjusting the lines until you have something that looks good!

It will look messy at this stage, but when you cut it out just use the best line!

Here is my hand drawn swirl after I cut it out. It's for sure not perfect, but that just adds some whimsy!


And if you're not a confident doodler, just grab some other swirl and trace it! I still have a bunch of "leftover" chipboard swirls from a big Fancy Pants pack I bought ages ago, and they work great for this technique. NOTE: If you want to just use the original swirl to trace directly onto your pattern paper, go for it. I made a template because what happens if I want to use the original chipboard...then I won't have it for a template anymore!

Just trace around the shape, and it doesn't have to be perfect!

Then cut it out, and you have a nice template to use over and over again!

Step Two: Pull together some papers from your stash, ones that you might want to use on your layout. We're not going to use all of them, but seeing them all together will give you an idea of which paper is the best to use for these.


You'll want something that has a very subtle or repeating pattern. You don't want lined paper or stripes because when you cut the curvy swirl, the lines will look weird...but hey, it's your page!!



Step Three: Take your chipboard template and lay it right side down on the wrong side of your pattern paper. This way you won't see any pencil lines!


Step Four: Now trace around the swirl shape. It doesn't matter if you use a pen or pencil if you do it on the back side of the paper.

Step Five: Cut out your shape, flip it over and there's your first swirl!!




And here is my finished layout!
It's a nice and simple layout about my son's adventure in the dusting of snow we got the other day! I just added some of the sparkly snowflakes I made a couple of Techneeks ago, some bling and a title. This just goes to show that you can use swirls on a boy layout!

I hope you enjoyed this techneek. You could also try:

• Sewing your swirls onto your page...I am so not organized enough for that!


• Outline the edges with a pen


• Sand or distress the edges


• Combine different pattern papers to create a bigger, multi-coloured swirl

______________________________________________________________
And the winner is...

Grand Prize: Electra who wrote: My favorite technique is your techneeks! ("are" your techneeks?) They never fail to delight me.Having said that, I guess my second favorite would be paint.Any kind. Any colour.

Runner-Up: Justjan who wrote: I really like the Stix2 anything with foils. Next to bling - it's the hottest thing!

Congratulations Ladies!! Please email me with your contact info so I can get your prizes out to you!! (lisakercher@gmail.com)

And thanks to all of you who played along...including some of the TM girls! Chantel says her favourite techneek is swirling alcohol ink all over a transparency and using it as a background. Check it out here on her blog.

And Lindsay's favourite techneek is the one I named after her! Check it out here for a step-by-step. Oh, and glossy accents on anything! You have to be careful when you work with her some days, because you'll put something down on the counter and before you know it, it's covered in Glossy Accents. Note to self: Black Prima flowers look totally awesome all covered in SHINY!

See you back here next Thursday!