Paper Piecing

Paper-piecing is a term known by veteran scrapbookers is also one that brings many questions to novices. Many of the questions we get through email or while at shows are:

"Are these stickers?"
"How do you make these?"
"Do you make these by hand?"
"How long does it take to create these?"

or my favorite:

"Why do these cost so much?"

For those that know, the art of paper piecing involves creating embellishments through the layering of the different parts of the image you are creating, giving it the "3D" effect and a personal touch that a sticker can not. The drawback of this is the amount of time it takes to create each piece, which answers the last question. :0)

When starting your paper pieced embellishment, you can do one of two things. You can either sketch your image or find one on the internet to use, the latter I do not recommend due to copyright issues. Once you have your image, start looking at how to break it up. For instance, if you are creating a Penguin such as the one I created below:

Start by breaking up the image into separate pieces. In this example, the body would be used as the base, then the other parts (such as the eyes, beak, arms, legs) would be your layering pieces. See below:

Once you have the pieces, simply cut them out in the different colors, shade the edges to make them "pop", and glue them together.... and VOILA!

As I stated before, this is a time consuming process, but well worth it when you are done. By now you may be asking yourself, "What if I am not good at sketching?" That is ok. You can find free paper piece patterns by doing a simple search on the web or there are companies that offer books of patterns for you to purchase. For patterns created by A Scrap of Time, click here.

Either way, whether you are a veteran or a novice, break out those embellishment designs and instead of printing or sticking them... Paper Piece them!

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