Do you love paper? I do! I also hate to waste any part of those beautiful backgrounds or solid bits that are left over after I cut a mat, die cut, or punch shapes. If pieces are roughly over two inches square, I save them to make other things. One of my favorite is this crazy quilt page. Here are the easy steps to create one of your own!
1) Save those bits! If you have been tossing them out , start saving them in a giant gallon sized zip bag. I have a zip bag for pieces over 2 inches square and a separate zip bag for tiny pieces less than 2 inches in size. The smaller ones will be used in punching but the larger ones I use to paper quilt! No matter how odd they may be shaped. place them into your bag and they will be handy and store flat.
2) Sort that bag of scraps! When the zip bag is full, it is time to make our crazy quilt! I carefully dump out the scraps onto the table and sort them by type. I usually have a pile each of neon's, country, pastels, Christmas, and neutrals. You could use everything at once but I think the page looks more polished if you use one type or another. I have so many scraps that it is never a problem to come up with enough! I only had a few neon's this time which I set aside. I seemed to have a lot of country papers this week! (See Figure One).
3) Let the paper set the tone and theme. My country scraps and some tiny paper samples from a recent convention dictated the gardening theme. If yours are basically neutrals--make a heritage page, all red and green--make a Christmas quilt. Tiny florals could make a nice family quilt page. Neon's are great for teens and pastels for baby photos. This is one time that we let the paper tell us what type of picture we are scrapping up today!
4) Mount the photo on a solid color. For my garden theme, I chose a pic of my two kids in our newly planted garden. Kelly green card stock from my scrap pile picked up the colors of the new plants and also coordinated with the print paper samples. Don't keep your photo and mat completely square. Cut off one corner or the other to give it the 'scrap' look of a crazy quilt piece.
5) Use a black piece of card stock as a guide. Your card stock should be the same size as you want the finished page to become. This black piece will keep you on track as to size during the project. Do not mount the photo or the paper bits to the black paper until you are completely done with the 'quilting'. At this time it is just a sizing guide.
6) Lay down the first round of crazy pieces. Place the photo you just mounted slightly down from center on the black page but do not glue it. Place scrap after scrap around the edge of the picture. I like to alternate between solids and patterns. Place them at odd angles to each other. When you like the placement, use a tape runner or photo mounting squares to adhere the bits of paper to each other so that you do not see any black showing though. use only a minimum of adhesive material as you may want to reposition later or cut excess off. My first round is seen in Figure Two.
7) Continue with rounds two and three. This time place solids on patterns and patterns next to plains. Try to get colors distributed about the page. You don't want all the reds in one corner or all the blue florals in a bunch on one side! Don't be too organized about it but do keep in mind that you want at least two of each pattern and color on the page somewhere. Each piece should range in size from one and a half inches up to about three inches. Keep overlapping and turning them askew. You decide what looks good. Stick them down with minimal adhesive!
8) Stop and trim the outermost edges when you get enough crazy quilting done to cover the entire black piece of paper. Make sure it is planned out the way you like it. Reposition if needed. Carefully turn over the crazy quilt and add adhesive here and there to secure the sections together especially on long corners or small pieces. Trim off bulky back pieces where needed.
9) Mount the entire crazy quilt onto the black card stock guide which is now your backing. Now you can be more generous with the adhesive!
10) Add cross stitching with black pen around each piece of paper 'fabric'. Do whatever journaling you like in a light colored solid quilt piece. I used a simple dash lettering to simulate a running stitch and added little bows with hanging threads within the red journaled box. That cross stitching at the end just pulls the whole concept together and really makes it look like a Victorian-era crazy scrap quilt!
