THREE WAY | SCATTER MATTERS

Hello Hello! Welcome to another edition of our Three Way Series, where we show you how to stretch your stash and/or share some creative ways to better use your stash.

Today I hope to inspire you to use your scatters creatively, as a design focal point on your pages, instead of just using them in a random grouping ... or well ... as a scatter. Scatters in scrapbooking are teeny tiny bits: like sequins, bling, seed beads or even paper confetti. Anything really teeny and tiny can be made into a scatter. In scrapbooking, we often find them randomly bunched together and cascading down a page or grouped together within a small area of a page. It is a gorgeous look and often adds that little bit of final finishing touch.

But ... the Three Way Series is about going beyond the usual and finding new ways to use the old ... so we are going to look at ways to mix it up and use those scatters in some creative and page wow'ing ways! Ready? Let's get started!

ONE
First up is this example, where I took 4 individual little sequins from the Sea Of Love Elements and made them into a sweet little circle element. You can't go wrong with circles, and even better if you group them in threes. It's a design trick sure to please the eye!

To make these sequin circles: I created a new layer, drew a circle with the marquee tool, filled it with a solid color, and then went to work placing individual sequins around the perimeter of the circle. I didn't worry too much if everything was perfectly spaced out. I kinda like the handmade look of my sequin circle and perfection was just not necessary for me.

TIP: turning off SNAP, and turning on the GRID helps ... in PS you find those under the View Menu.

*Think about other shapes you could make with sequins or other tiny "scatter" bits. The possibilities are endless! You can arrange your scatters into:

a swirl or flourish
make a heart
or cute geometric shapes like triangles and diamonds.

TWO
Next up, is this page where I used a tiny scatter of seeds beads from Sea Of Love Elements to recreate waves for my page.

To make my seed bead waves: I used the marquee tool to select one bead from the group and CUT and PASTED it so it was on its very own layer. I did this with the seed beed scatter until each and every little seed bead was on its own layer. Then I took the cute little dotted line wave stamp in the Sea of Love element kit and put that down on my page over and under the photo (I used three copies of it), to mark off where I wanted my little seed bead waves to appear. The dotted wavy line stamp worked as my stencil. Now this took some time, I'm not going to lie, but the end result is really cute! I then tediously placed each tiny little bead (making lots and lots of copies as needed) along the wavy line stencil, until my waves were complete. Then I hid the stencils. (Or you can simply delete them.)

TIP: You are going to have a ton of layers of individual seed beads for this type of look, so utilize your Group Folder in your Layers Palette (it is at the bottom of the Layers Palette, next to the New Layer icon and it looks like a Folder). Place all the seed beads in here, so you can collapse it ... and save your sanity while working on other areas of your page later!

*Think about other ways you could incorporate something like this onto your pages with tiny elements:

a scallop or zigzag border
a chevron pattern
a row of scatters all lined up and spaced out evenly

I think I will be doing this a bit more on my future pages!

THREE
The last example I have to share with you really takes this idea to the next level! I used my scatters in two different ways on this page. Can you tell I am a teeny bit addicted to playing with my scatters in this manner now? hee-hee.

I combined individual teeny stars from a bunch of kits and a star confetti scatter from the If Only Elements to fill in one of the rays in the starburst paper from Sing Like Nobody is Listening. I love the look ... and that "ray full of stars" really draws the eye over to the title. The word ONE in the title is cut out from a piece of background paper, also from Sing Like Nobody is Listening, and filled with sequins. I love the look of that one little word in my title filled up with pretty and colorful sequins!

To make the ray of stars: I simply grabbed individual tiny stars from a few kits and started copying them, resizing them and placing them within the starburst. I then grabbed the star scatter from If Only, and used the same method as in the seed bead wave above, to CUT and PASTE some of the stars and place them on their own layers so I could move them where they fit best, and contain them within the ray.

Tip: For the star scatter, I did not need to place each and every star on its own individual layer. I just cut and pasted small groups as needed to make them better fit within the ray.

To make the sequin word ONE for my title: I used individual sequins and grouped them into a few different layer groups. What I mean is, I took about 5 or 6 individual sequins and grouped them together, to make it easier to copy and paste (a group of 6 sequins fills a space quicker than grabbing them all individually). Then I took 7 or 8 and arranged them in a slightly different manner (so they didn't create too much of a similar pattern and looked more hand placed). Then I copied and pasted these groups (rather than individual sequins, which would have taken forever!) and moved them around to fill in the letters for the word. Use the link icon to group a few sequins together or highlight them all and merge them together.

TIP: Where needed I did grab an individual sequin to finish filling in the word and make it look more hand placed.

*Think of all the cute things you could fill with tiny sequins or bits:

to fill in those cute little mason jars
fill in the colors of a rainbow
leaves on a tree
stars in a night sky
make flowers on stitched or stamped stems
as bubbles for a page about water
decorate a Christmas tree
sprinkles on a cupcake or ice cream cone!!!

There are just so many possible ways to un-scatter those scatters and turn them into something really special on your pages! I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Three Way Series. Happy Scrapping!