Journal Embellishments: Page Edges

1. Class Intro: Hello, I'm Danielle Amount, author and artist here in skills. Today's class is the first class in my journal embellishment. Siri's. This class focuses on making embellished page edges. Today's lessons will show three techniques for using paper to create cohesive and appealing decorative page edges. Toe at your journals, altered books, handmade books and scrapbooks. We'll start by selecting a piece of paper that inspires us either in color or pattern. From there, we'll create simple yet harmonized collages that accentuate our pages. These techniques are designed for beginner paper artists, but are a great launching point for advanced artists as well. Will you straightforward tools like glue paper and scalloped scissors to create our page edges for your class project. Create your own embellished page edge. You can choose your colors or use a piece of paper or image as inspiration. Then go through your paper stash as well as your scraps and select patterns and colors that match your inspiration piece. Please take a photo of your work and posted in the project section. Please follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes and consider leaving a review. And if you have an idea for a future class on journal embellishments, please share it in the comments section. Thanks for joining me Now Let's get started. 2. Class Supplies: These are the supplies I'll need to make my page edges. I have my paper. Most of its scrap paper scraps that I've cut from projects have already done. I have my inspiration paper, which is the colors or the pattern that inspires me to create that page edge. I want to incorporate something from this into the edge. I have my base color. It's usually a white or cream, and in this case I'm gonna use bright white. You can combine white and cream. Typically, I don't. There are times I do, but for the most part I stick to one or the other, and it gives a nice contrast with my pieces. I have just a bone folder to make a nice crease on my folds, small pair of scissors to cut out my pieces. These are my favorite tool. It's a pair of scalloped scissors, and I find that the little plastic ones don't tend to work for me for very long. I something about my motion tends to put them out of whack, so I bought a pair of seamstress scalloped scissors. I have a glue stick that I use Acid Free is my only requirement and then I have some paper glue. This is a fabric tack, but it glues paper or anything to paper. So I really like this. In the next chapter, we'll start our design. 3. Selecting Papers: when selecting the colors for my design, I have my inspiration peace. In this case, it's this piece of scrap of paper. I love the colors in the vibrancy. I don't tend to use a lot of black normally, so this is a little unusual, but I think it's a beautiful addition for this design. I'm not gonna use this paper. I'm just gonna use the colors and the pattern to inspire me. So I always choose a base color to start with. In this case, I'm choosing white, so I don't tend to count that as a color, even though technically it is. From here, I choose three main colors to have in my design. It's gonna be blue, orange and black, and then I'll keep one or two colors on the side to use. In this case, it's this golden mustard color that I may or may not use, depending on my design. Within the colors, though, that I've chosen I have a couple of interesting things I have. I like to use different patterns or solids within the color. So while I have my three main colors, it actually appears to B'more because I have like a patterned blue as well. The solid blue. And here I have my oranges, but I have three different patterns. Same thing with the black. I have this black with a little bit white in it. It's kind of off black, my sharp black, and then was interesting for my base color. I like to use different textures as well. So while they're all white on this one is a little bit of a pattern with some gray in it. And this is just a name, boss piece of paper. So it gives some really stunning interest and look to my piece. 4. Page Edge Design #1: the first thing you'll need when I start my page edge design is to have a piece of paper. The height of the page, actually, a little bit taller is even better. So I take my This happens to be a scrap of white slum. What textured paper? Actually, it's card stock, A little heavy weight, and I'd like to make it a couple of inches. I always start with more than I'll need. I'm gonna start with scalloped scissors. I want one edge to have a nice decorative edge, so I'm just gonna cut it here. I probably won't be making it fully straight, and I'm okay with that in my journal. So here I have the edge that I want and this is gonna be on the underside. So what I do then, from here is I take my paper and I just fold it in half. Or at least, um, with a nice band. So I have at least an inch overhang on the side of the decorative edge, make a light crease, and then I take my bone folder and make a nice, sharp crease here. So here I have one side. I use my black paper here just to show the contrast. I have the nice decorative edge, and this is gonna be the side that I tuck into. One side of the page will be working on the opposite side. So if I'm gonna put it on my left hand side of the book when I put the page over, this is what you'll see on the other side. I'm gonna do now is just cut this paper down just slightly. I don't need to have quite so much of an edge there, and most of this is gonna be covered up. So here I have the edge. I'm gonna work on the decorative edges, go to go underneath. Next, we'll start heading our details. 5. Adding Details Design #1: So here I have my three colors my blue, orange and black and then my white based color. What I'm gonna do is make choose. The one that I'm gonna use is the focal point or the main draw to my page. And I'm gonna use black for that. So the first thing I'm gonna do is cut a fairly large piece of black. And I might cut this down further as the, um as I progress in my building of my page edge. So this is pretty far off from the edge of the page. But for now it will work to see the color and where the layout that I want. So I have my black. And then I like to have at least two others so that I have a minimum of three of my major color. The other two will not be as large is this piece. But for design purposes, I'll just use this piece here and this piece here. Clearly, this is the larger piece, and I might change that around as time goes as well. Then I'll start with my other colors. My two other colors the orange and the blue. We'll start with the orange here, and I really like this pattern. I'll cut a little clip here. These are all rectangle shapes. It's gonna overlay that here for now. And I think I'll take a one over here purposely going smaller than my dominant color. And I think I take a solid as well. Maybe not quite that. Break that there and then I'll move on to my blue. So I already have some pieces cut. See how those look? Just place it down. And so here I have three blue, three orange and three black. Looking at it, I'm trying to be inspired by this piece here, so I think I'm going to use some of that mustard, Maybe just one strip right there and then I want a filling with some white. I like to have the entire base filled up, but if I don't, that's okay, because my white color was exposed, and that's part of the design. So I'm gonna jump right in here with this in Boston piece. Put this down there. We'll make a longer one right there. And I think I'll go in here maybe with this pattern piece and I'll put that there So here I have a design. I can decide if I want to add another piece here. I think I will go with C. I'll go with another of this paper piece. So here I have my preliminary design. The next stage will start to glue it down and trim it up. 6. Adhering the Page Edge Design #1: So now I'm just taking a piece of scrap paper and I'm gonna slide it underneath the fold that we made here in the piece. So I'm gonna just gently slide this out so everything stays similar to where I want it. And I'll put my scrap paper here underneath so that when I glue, if any, any glue will become on the scrap paper and not on my work surface, hopefully or on the other pieces. So I'm gonna start here, and this is the main color, and it's also on the bottom. So I'm going toe, start with that piece first, carefully slide it out, and I'll just put it where I want it. And I don't want to extend too much so that it sticks out of my journal and tears off, but just enough so that it's it shows, and at the end, I will trim on this side. So I'm not terribly worried about what's happening on the right side yet. Take my glue using the decorative sitters. I can also trim an edge, a decorative edge on to the thes rectangles as well, if I want to add some more interest. So I think the next one here was a white at the bottom. And what? That overhang a little. And I can trim that off a swell at the end. The next was this. I think I am gonna make that decorative edge on this side. So have a little bit of a scalloped edge. Hold that out. Maybe just slightly above that first piece we put down at the bottom again, I'm trying to kept have lots of overhang. That adds interest. Put that piece here. I'm gonna start building with that mustard colored piece. Pull it just behind that major piece here. I think I'm just gonna overlap it a little bit on this blue. We'll start at the top again. I put my glue down, have a little bit the blue first, see how this one. Because the white was next. Some black trim this edge. Think I'll go over that right in the center there. And my orange piece. Move it up a little. I think we'll have a little space. And then lastly I have this white piece. I think I'll have it just like that. I have that right there. Slowly and carefully. Try and pull off that scrap piece, and I'm gonna let this dry before we trim it. So I'll give that a few minutes to dry before then, though, I'll just burnish this a little bit to make sure it stays. We'll go from there. 7. Trimming the Page Edge Design #1: now that our pieces dried, Here's the part that we will attach to the page. Here's the edge here. You can leave it like this. If you'd like to have the different edge on the page and on a page when you would hear it down, it would look like this. So that's that one Look, you can have I'm gonna cut it down and again, I'm gonna use my decorative scissors here and I'm just gonna cut over here. Not all will have the decorative edge. And here's how it will look on the page. But I think I'll do now is just cut one decorative edge in the black, since that's our main color. So only to find a strip of paper, the length of our design and what I'll do versus trim the edge here. So here's a piece of paper the length of our design. I'm gonna take my decorative scissors, have a nice long strip because they're decorative. Flip the paper around and line it up. I can get a very interesting scalloped edge here on both sides and then from here, I'll just adhere it down where I want it on the piece. Take off that little piece. And I think I'll just sit here it just like that we can move it over If I wanted to be closer to the edge, But I think it was gonna do it 1/3 of the way from the edge on the right. Take my paper glue. Put a beat of glue across the length of the strip, you know, and that right on after it drives will trim it down. So now this is all dry. Well, trim the ends down. I like to flip it over to do that, and we have our peace. 8. Page Edge Design #2: for a second technique, we're gonna use the same scraps and the same inspiration photo for our paper edge. But we're gonna do it's just slightly different this time. I'm gonna use scraps from the actual inspiration paper, and instead of a white background, I'm gonna go with a black one. So again I create my my paper edge the length of my paper. I'll fold it in half, create that crease. And this is a scrap of paper from the paper we used the first time to create our long strip . And whereas before we had our paper, that's gonna go on the edge of the left hand side page. This time we'll do it on the right hand side. I have my decorative edge already set on the back. Don't leave that just as it is and we'll work on this side on the right hand side. Good. Put my scrap paper in In this paper, this technique is there another simple technique using in perfect cuts. So I'm going to start again with my three major pieces and these are scraps from this piece inspiration photo. And then I'll add and I add less black and more white, since we don't have a white base any longer, so I'll just take my scissors and cut my scraps. Hold off on using the white Quite yet. Use a little more blue, see, So this orange and I'll go with a long one. And since it's already has appointed edge, I think I'll use that ninjas. Well, maybe this way. And see instead of this peace, I'll use a solid orange. Put that at the bottom. Use a couple of thin strips of this mustard color. We'll be right there, right there. And now I want some more blue. I think I had to get a solid strip of blue, Had some of that took that right behind here. Okay? And I think I want to add some white now. I had a white there, maybe a weight up top and maybe a couple of strips of white here in here, There, maybe down here and in the next chapter will let here this to the paper 9. Adhering Strips to Page Edge Design #2: Okay, here we have our paper strips. I think this is an extra. I'll slide this over our scrap paper to help so that we don't have here it to each other and I'll start right up top here. I think blue is the next one. I have a little bit of overlap. And while this before this glue sets, I have a little bit of time to make any minor adjustments that I want. I'll save the white piece for the top. I'm ready to go about it. I think that was the order. We had it not I can change it. I had a little more glue. I like the difference in the edge here. We can trim it downs further, but I like the way it's starting to look. Give some contrast here. Gonna slowly separate thes start at the bottom here with the orange set, some blue. - Pull this back just a little, and I'll add our final two pieces. Look and see if there's anything missing or Freddie to add a little more glue here and there. Burnish it. We'll let this dry, then we'll do our training 10. Trimming the Page Edge Design#2: Now this is dry and I have a scrap paper here to see what it will look like up against the page. I like the way this looks on this side. I think I'm gonna leave this side alone. Maybe I'll just trim this one down slightly. I like the way this is looking. Trim this one down. So our longest one is our focal point. And then on this side, I'm gonna trim them down further. Think I'll keep this one the length that I want them all to be. Except for that point, I'm gonna leave that point. I like the way that looks, but I'll trim the rest down so it really stands out. And again, I'm just eyeballing it. It's not perfectly straight. Then I'm gonna flip it over and trim the ends They need to be. And so here we have our piece that slides into our page 11. Page Edge Design #3: for the last technique. We're going to continue to use our paper scraps, but in a slightly different manner again. We'll start with our peace will make our fold this time. I'm not gonna make a decorative edge. I made my nice crease. I took my scrap paper and I put it down. And now this might be a little big, but I think I'm gonna work with it. I can trim this down later if I need to. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna layer pieces and I'm gonna have to dominant accents, I should say, Not really dominant two accents and that's gonna be in the black and white. So the rest of my pieces I'm gonna layer here one on top of each other, Kind of a buildup. I don't need it to be very thick. I'm gonna go actually, just a little, um, thicker than the piece we folded here. Cut up my strips first again, I can trim them down, but I'm going to try and keep them all the same size and again, I'm influenced by this piece. Gonna start with this piece. It's gonna go it down, creating a little bit of overhang on both sides. And then I'm gonna continue layering the pieces as I go. I'm not going to use the white or the black, just the colors that we have here. And I'll go the length of the peace on occasion. I want to have a nice, thick piece in there. Kind of done that with the blue here. And I don't want there to be a little space in between my layers. So there is gonna be a little overlap e there, under or over. Continue with my layers. I have my pieces here. I'll let this dry. 12. Design #3 Second Layer: Now this is dry and a trim the edge here just to make it somewhat uniform removed my scrap paper. So from here, you can stop right here. Add this to your page. So it'll look like this once you would hear it, which is a nice border. Or you could take it one step further, like we're going to do here. I have strips and I use just the black and the white for this, and I'm gonna create a decorative edge. You can use just a regular pair of scissors as well, but I like the way this decorative scalloped edge looks kind of creates like a paper ribbon mental, just fine spots where I have the large, um, pieces of color to adhere. My paper ribbon. I'll cut one Here is well of the weight and a 2nd 1 of the black and we'll cut more if needed. But now I'll just select where I want to put my pieces and adhere them down. So I like the way the white contrast they're with the dark and the orange. So I think I'll start with that one. Put my little bit of glue like a little bit of overhang, and then I'll trim it off once it's dry. Trim off a little now as well. I don't know if it's not quite long enough. So that aside, I'll go in with my black like it right there on this blue piece. Give it a moment to bond. Scrape off any extra trim that as well do one more dark one down here on this mustard color and another white one right between the blue and the orange. Think looks nice and then see another black one. Maybe right up there, you could continue adding, as many of these as you'd like as you go. If you want, you can add them of every intersection just like that. Trim this off just a little short. It's too close. I think I can do. I can double up if I double up up here, so maybe I'll do that. We'll let this dry Now that it's dry. Well, trim up the edges here on both sides and the top in the bottom, and we have our layered book edge 13. Class Wrap Up: So here are three finished book edges. They could go in either direction as long as you don't have writing or perhaps something facing a certain way. They're kind of interchangeable to that degree, and then the way you would use thumb as you take your journal the page that you want to put it on and you bring it right to the edge. You have put a line of glue and you did hear it down. Then you trim up the edges from there on this side, you'd have this edges well, if you didn't want the edge on the other side, you could just sniff that off or glue it down and it here it where you want it. When the book is closed, it appears that there are lots of tabs and more pages, so it's an interesting effect. So here's one look second look on the white four on the orange. It is a nice contrast there, and if you have it the other way, let's see, with a decorative edge showing, it'll appeared like that, which is another decorative edge in itself. And here's the piece on the orange paper. I want to put it here because I had that little arrow I could play be put a quote here or something to draw on that because the eye is drawn our attention to this section. So it kind of gives an interesting look. I hope. Youll try your hand at one of these decorative page edges. Take a photo of your work and posted in the project section. Be sure to follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes. Please consider leaving your review. Thanks for watching.