Scrapbooking has gone through many trends in the last 10 years. Die cuts, stickers, chalking and decorative scissors have all had a spot in the limelight. Many of them have recently been rediscovered and have become popular once more. Similarly, paper piecing is now once again a popular technique. I think that its rise in popularity is directly related to the advent of the personal electronic cutter.
I know that some of you cannot even think of paper piecing without getting heart palpitations. It seems, at least at first glance, that scrapbookers and card makers fall into two camps when it comes to paper piecing. You either love it or avoid it like the plague. And yet, if you really think about it, we all do paper piecing.
Paper piecing can be defined as layering paper to create dimension. At the most basic level it is simply 2 layers of paper. Anyone who has taken a letter and added a shadow mat under it is paper piecing. If you have cut apart a die cut and glued it on top of another die cut you have paper pieced. A yellow school bus with black wheels and a gray shadow mat is a paper piecing.
If you take a look at the paper piecings offered in our image library you will see a variety of styles and skill levels. All of the files from Pazzles follow the same standard. The design is created in color so that you can see what the finished project will look like. The pieces are color coded to make it easier to differentiate between the parts. If there are overlapping parts that are to be cut of the same color paper, the parts will be outlined in different shades of that color so that they can be easily moved apart for cutting. White will be outlined in another color such as gray or light blue. If there are overlapping black pieces they will usually be outlined in black, gray, purple or navy.
Perhaps you find a paper piecing from another source and they don’t have different color lines. I recommend you make a copy of the design and separate out the pieces so you can see the different parts for cutting. You can have groups of pieces that will be cut from the same color of paper. If you desire you can change the line color to match the color of paper the piece will be cut from. Don’t forget to save your file so you do not need to repeat the separating process again.
If you love the look of layered paper but have been afraid to try it, I recommend you watch the new video Anatomy of a Paper Piecing in The Fundamentals section of our video library. Finally, be sure to take a tour through our members gallery and you will see many beautiful projects that will inspire you.
Thank you for the wonderful article on paper piecing Christine. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE paper piecing! I cracked up at the “some of you get heart palpitations” line. That is so TRUE! Have my PI has given us the ability to take paper piecing to a whole new level!!! Thank you for such a great machine!
I totally agree with that comment on the heart palpitations! I look at designs with small items and details and think: I wouldn’t be cutting that out by hand!! Thank goodness for the Pazzles cutter……because I’ve done paper piecings that otherwise I would never have done.
I have always LOVED paper piecing and my pazzle machine has made it even better…
I’m right there with you in the LOVE, LOVE, LOVE paper piecing camp! It’s so much fun, and it allows you to have a really great bang for your buck on scrapbook pages, cards and other projects. The bigger Jolee’s By You layered embellishments run about $5 EACH and they’re not even that big. It’s easy to see why the Pazzles machines are such money savers in the long run. Even if you only put ONE Jolee’s on each page of a 20 page scrapbook, that would be a hundred dollars! And the fact that I can design my own custom paper piecings whenever I want? …PRICELESS!
I love paper piecing! I think I paper piece everything that I create and cut on my PI. It’s just those stinkin itty bitty pieces that get me every time LOL. Dana