STAMPING 101

Article of the Month

December 2007 -Stamping Photo Mat Borders

Matting a photo is one of the most basic techniques in scrapbooking. It’s amazing how a simple mat can highlight a photo, making it stand out on the page.

Want to add a little extra pizazz to your photo mats? Try a stamped border. It’s easy, and the technique can give a little extra polish to a page—as it does on this gorgeous winter layout!

Snow Day
By Laura Nicholas

Why mat your photo? A mat provides a visual “space” between the photo and the background paper—especially important if your background design is patterned. Think of it as framing a picture before you hang it on the wall…whether you have wallpaper or not, a frame still adds a finishing touch. A mat also provides you with additional space for embellishing!

Here, Laura chose to embellish her focal photo with a swirly stamped border. The trick? This border isn’t stamped with ink—instead, Laura used white paint for a soft, slightly smudgy effect, which is repeated with the painted edges of her papers. Let’s take a look and see exactly how she did it!

“Accenting an enlarged photo with a large mat creates a great focal on this page,” says Laura. “After stamping the swirl with white paint, I layered a stamped snowflake on top of the swirls and highlighted them with mini Brad Buddies™ for extra dimension.”

To build the page, Laura used the light blue snowflake paper as her background. She trimmed a dark blue snowflake paper to 10" square and used a cosmetic wedge to lightly swipe white acrylic paint along the edges. When the paint was dry, she attached the paper in the center of the background.

“The trick is to use a light touch with paint. You’ll want to swipe it onto the paper quickly and lightly—just enough to add some color, but not too much, or the paper will warp and buckle. If you apply too much paint, use a paper towel to swipe some off.”

Laura then matted her photos on light blue paper, leaving a 1/8"-wide border. A 7"x5" photo was matted again on a darker blue paper, leaving a 1 1/4"-wide border on the left side and 1/4" around the other edges. One small photo also has two ribbon loops attached underneath. Laura computer-generated her journaling onto light blue paper and trimmed it to fit onto a block with the photos.

Laura also used the cosmetic wedge to apply paint onto the acrylic stamp. She applied it with a light touch—just enough to cover the image thoroughly. She stamped the swirls along the left edge of the larger photo; when the paint was dry, she added stamped snowflakes and applied paint around the outside edges of the photo mat.

After attaching the matted photos to her page, Laura randomly stamped snowflakes on the dark blue snowflake paper, overlapping some onto the light blue background. When they were dry, she embellished the page with white silk flowers, a tied bow and metal mini Brad Buddies™.

For a finishing touch, Laura highlighted the centers of some of the snowflakes with white mini brads.

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