"Vellum" - Technique Tuesday

Back in the day, when I was a paper scrapper, I loved to use vellum. I just liked the soft touch of layering that it brought to my layouts. The only problem was that it was relatively expensive in terms of paper so I didn't use it all that much. Once I entered the digital world, I found that I enjoyed using vellum as well except now I could create my own "vellum" and it was FREE...love that!

I will often use "vellum" when I want to frame something or if I want to add just a little bit more dimension to my layout. It is very simple technique to use. I use the rectangular marquee tool. I create a box based on the shape that I am trying to frame. I will then lower the opacity of the box until it feels right. The opacity really varies depending on the look that I am trying to achieve especially if I am using it to soften a blended photo.

I included some layouts in which I used my version of "vellum". On "Beauty", you can see that I used two vertical strips of vellum on the edge of the photo. I reduced the opacity to almost zero but then added a shadow to it, to give it a little dimension and frame the focal area of the page. On "Golden", I used the vellum to add dimension and frame in the blended image in the background.

On "My Sweet Love", I used vellum to give my paper a slight contrast in color. I think I could call this the "lazy woman's way of scrapping". Instead of trying to find another sheet of digital paper that was close to my background paper, I just used the vellum overlay to give it that slight variation in color.

On "Wannabe", I again used the vellum to soften the blended image and then I place a stroke around the edge to frame the vellum.

Again, I created more depth on my background photo and papers by framing my son's face.

"Instant Drool" is another example of this technique.

All products are from Designer Digitals.

I hope you found this useful. It is just a simple technique that I have gone to time and time again over the last few years. I hope you give it a try.

A few of you have been kind enough to leave me some comments and "thank you" so much for the feedback. I have received a number of comments from people asking about my blending process. In June, I did a webinar with Debbie Hodge at Masterful Scrapbook Designs. It was a lot of fun. There seemed to be some interest in an additional webinar or series in which people could see my screen and get a peek into my creative process. I would love to share this with you. Debbie and I are working on this and hopefully I will have more information for you soon. Thank you so much for your feedback and interest. I really appreciate it.

I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by.