Using stitching on a layout as more than just decoration

Stitching on scrapbook pages is used all the time—I use it all the time—to accent and decorate. It’s a beautiful way to highlight a portion of your design and makes a page more special. But it needn’t always be relegated to the embellishment category on our layouts. In the case of today’s page, you can see that it provides much of the meaning, too.

I wanted to leave as much of my background map paper on show as possible, but I didn’t want my page to be too simple, lest it turn out boring. As I thought about all the trips my mom has taken over the years during her summer breaks from teaching, it hit me that the design needed a fanciful flight pattern to complete the look and the message. And stitching was the perfect way to do that! I doodled a quick curlicue path with pencil, pierced holes along the route and stitched it with hot pink embroidery floss to match my mom’s shirt.

This October I celebrate four years of scrapbook blogging! And that makes me feel like having a little party, so I’m hosting Blogtoberfest. Sorry, you’ll have to supply your own beer and brats, but I’ll bring the paper-crafting inspiration:

• sketches
• tutorials
• product reviews
• free cut files
• a giveaway: I’ll reveal the details a little later

“Roll out the paper.
We’ll have a barrel of fun!”

I do hope you’ll join me often this month and help me celebrate the good things that scrapbooking brings to our lives.

Product/technique notes

The travel-themed patterned papers I used are from Jillibean Soup’s “Sightseeing Stew” collection, and the others are older scraps from my stash. The airplane is a foam Thickers sticker.