In a recent article I talked about making your own bracket shaped templates.  I use my templates for all sorts, such as mats, embellishments and journaling blocks.

In the Scrapbook Page below I have used the template I made in that article, to cut a large journaling block, this time from the freebie paper which I gave away during June (you need to subscribe to the newsletter to pick up all the freebies, including past ones). So this is a bit of a Hybrid Scrapbooking Page.

I used the technique of “gutting” again (cutting out the middle of the base cardstock which is covered by the panel of patterened paper) and used the resulting piece of cardstock to create the large mat (for all the photos) and the title block - all from the middle piece of the background cardstock.

Below is a close up of the arrow in the middle of this scrapbook page.  All the “chipboard” arrows I had weren’t the right shape to go cleanly around the photograph without obscuring the front of the truck  in the photo, (of course!) so I made this arrow by using one of the others as a template and then adjusting the length and shape to suit my layout.  I then used the technique using polystyrene pizza base packaging and covered it with paper, sanding the sides and inking the edges.

The original arrow was a bit “thick”, as the pizza bases are quite sturdy, but the beauty of the polystyrene is such that I was able to easily carve off some depth using  my craft knife (my trusty scalpel).  In fact the arrow slopes gently to be thinner at the tip!  Not that you can really appreciate that in the photo here. 

Above is a close up of the stitched ribbon, I used a sewing machine for this and I did actually hand sew the buttons (I usually just use pva glue!).  There are also some brads, as you can see.

A lot of the components on this page layout are from Basic Grey, including some of the brads, apart from my own paper (used as the journaling block).  The line of circles is from a pack of cardstock die-cut strips “Just the edge” by Bazzill Basics.  They come in a range of colours, but I always buy white (of these sorts of things) so that I can recolour to whatever I like, which is what I have done here using inks to match the strip of circles with the surounding papers.