Hello crafty friends!  I have a fun and simple post to share with you today.  It’s all about paper piecing!  For those of you who may be new to this concept, paper piecing is when you add patterns and style to your cards or images.  It’s an easy alternative to coloring and it’s especially cool when you use it to “dress” your images.

Here are 3 images from the new Birdie Brown Rain or Shine and Puddle Jumper Stamp Sets.  For those of you who might be intimidated by coloring or if you need to do something quick and coloring takes you a long time (like me), then paper piecing is always a fun and really cool alternative.

As you can see from the photo above, I did only some very minimal coloring.  The rest of my “color” came from some fun patterned paper.

So, how do you achieve this fun effect?  It’s actually pretty simple.  All you need is some of your favorite patterned paper, a stamping block or Misti Stamping Tool, Ink and a good pair of scissors.

 First, I simply stamp my images with black ink onto smooth white card stock.  I then decide which parts I want to color and which parts I want to add patterned paper.

I then stamp my images again on to whatever pattern paper I want to use.  For example, because I wanted the girl who is holding the open umbrella to have a pink umbrella and boots, but a purple jacket, I simply stamped her two times (once onto each separate piece).

Once done, you then just fussy cut each piece that you want.  I like to go over the outer edges with a black marker to make my cuts look almost perfect.  It’s really hard to keep a perfect black line when fussy cutting, so this helps your cuts to look crisper and neat.

You then want to diecut your images before you glue on the patterned paper.

This is the final product when combining the pieces shown above.  It looks pretty cool, right?  And like I said, it’s minimal coloring.

I decided to make a card out of one of the images that I made.  Paper piecing is so fun and simple that this card took me a lot less time than it would if I had to color everything.  It’s also good for adding some fun patterns or textures that may be hard to achieve with coloring alone.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tip for today!  If you’ve never tried this technique before, I urge you to give it a go!  It’s honestly very simple and you will be surprised with the fun effects that it creates on your projects.

Make sure to check out the MFT Blog to see what other Tips & Tricks the rest of the team has posted!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day!

Rachel