Embellies On a Budget

Sometimes, I just don't have the right embellishments to finish off my page, so instead of going shopping, I turn to creating my own. It is amazing how far a few items already on hand can go to lend an elegance to a very simple page. I began with a Sketchy Thursday design for my page. Diana always has the most wonderful sketches to jump-start my creativity. 

The sketch included a flourish, but I did not have one in my stash to match my page. A Bo Bunny flourish sticker worked out perfectly after it was inked with a gold Adirondack Dabber. The alphas were also the wrong the color for my page, so I used the Dabber to give them a nice textural gold color also.

I was further inspired by this wonderful die cut peek-a-boo paper by We R Memory Keepers to create a pinwheel flower to embellish my LO. All I needed was a few small scraps of paper and a brad and my pinwheel made the perfect accent for my page.

If you would like to add a pinwheel to one of your pages, simply follow the tutorial below.

First, gather some supplies. You will need a paper trimmer, some scraps, a small flower punch, some ink and a brad.

Cut two squares of paper with your paper trimmer. I used 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" squares. Whatever size square you use, take note that the finished pin wheel will be about double the size when complete. Next, cut each square on the diagonal, so that you now have 4 triangles.

Now, following the picture here, take one edge of each triangle and fold it up so that the edges meet. Once you have done that to all four triangles, ink the edges for some dimension.

Take your paper piercer and stick it through the center of your punched flower, then through the edge of your triangle where the two edges meet. Put all four triangles onto the paper piercer in this manner. Then pull out the paper piercer and insert your brad.

And there you have it- your completed pinwheel ready to be added to your scrapbook page. Experiment by using different size squares and double-sided patterened papers. Before long, you will use up all your stash and you didn't have to go out and buy anything extra! If you use this tutorial, I would love to see what you make. Leave me a comment and a link because I would love to take a look!