How to Basket Weave Your Scrapbook Layout Page!

Basket weaving is not just for baskets! What a fantastic and unusual embellishment for your scrapbook layout! It adds color, depth and dimension and just brings the page layout all together. And if you want to use it for the upcoming Easter theme layouts - how perfect is that going to be!!!

"Catching Balloons"

I was making the layout for my grand daughter's memory album. She was at a wedding shower and she was amazed at the balloons and enjoyed reaching up to grab the strings and then hand them out to the guests. That is what I wanted her to remember. This is a 12x12 layout page

To Make The Basket Weave Embellishment

To make the basket weave embellishment is not has hard as it might seem. All you need is a paper cutter and some glue. Choose your colors for the entire layout. Choose which 2 colors you want for the basket weave. I choose purple and yellow. I cut strips from12x12 cardstock at about 1/4" in thick, making 12x1/4" strips. I started with the yellow strips and layed them across the top, with equal spacing between them for the purple ones to slide through. I glued them down to the cardstock back ground paper only as far over until I wanted the weaving to start. This makes for easy weaving. The ends are glued down so they don't move while you weave. Photos on top of the strips break up the weaving a bit so it doesn't get overwhelming.

Next, I weaved the purple strips in through the yellow ones. My weave area size guide was the photo at the bottom. Notice I made the purple strips portion of the weave only as wide as that photo at the bottom. The weave area of the yellow strips was just slightly less that the height of the pictures. It looked "over done" to have them the same "size" as the height of the photos. This is something you have to do and consider for your self. Since you aren't glueing anything yet, you can easily play around and find that perfect fit for your layout. The photos kind of hide the ends of the strips and tie the weave all together.

Once you have the weave the way you like, just add glue in a few places inside the weaved area and then glue down all the ends of the strips. Sounds more complicated and time consuming but it really is quick and easy. Hardest part is probably deciding how much area you want to cover with the weave. In addition, I cut 3 photos of just the toddler catching or holding the balloons and cut them into thinner sizes - these are about 2 inches wide, 4 inches long. I matted them on contrasting cardstock and layed them over the yellow basket weave strips. The last photo, I cropped it to match the purple strip area size.

To Compliment the Basket Weave Area

Now there is an open space in the lower left corner of the scrapbook page. This is where I wanted my title to go. I didn't want to use more basket weaving as that would have been to much. So I just took small pieces of the cardstock I had used and with a 2 inch square punch, I punched out squares, and just layed them out into a nice catchy sploch of color. I used vellum and printed the title "Catching Balloons" via computer. Then I tore the vellum into a nice odd shape and laid it over the colored squares. I used yellow eyelets to hold the vellum in place. Again, quick and easy.

No Journaling, But the Story Is Still Told

This scrapbook layout has no journaling. It "shows" that my grand daughter liked catching the balloons and other than that, there was nothing else to say. The title tells the action and the photos tell the story. I always "signed" my scrapbook layouts with a stamp that said "I Love You" and my initial (N for Nanny to my GD or M for mom for my kids) I always used gold ink for the stamping of my signature. Just that extra added feature that holds on to a wonderful memory!