Tuesday Tutorial with our Guest Designer, Christine Newman

This week we have Christine Newman (U.S.) bringing you a tutorial on how to create a mini folder as part of a geometric layout. We'd love to see what you do with her folder tutorial and how you will use this technique on your own layouts.

Christine Newman

I love the simplicity of a grid layout, but I wanted to include more photos and embellishments. I decided to make a layout with two folders on it so I could include more photos and embellishments. I'll take you through the steps to create the folders.

1. Cut your paper to 4" tall and 7" across. Score or fold the paper in half, or at the 3.5" line.

2. I'm using a We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board to create my folders. You could definitely just cut it by hand. Line up the short edge of the paper so that the left corner is in the middle of the opening "hole" of the punch board. Press down on the punch.

3. Flip the paper over and align the left side of the paper with the 2" ruler on the punch board. Punch again.

4. Repeat the process on the other short side of the paper. You'll end up with tabs on each side of the paper, one on top and one on bottom.

5. Trim off the non-tabbed part of both sides of the paper. You end up with a folder with a top tab and a bottom tab.

Here's my grid-style layout with the two folders in the upper left and lower right side of the layout. I used a couple of little clothespines from my stash to keep the folders closed. In the other spaces I added 3x4 photos and 3x4 patterned papers.

I embellished the outside of the upper left folder with stamps and diecuts from the Shimelle line in the October kit.

When you open that folder, you see an extra photo of my husband enjoying his ice cream. On the right side I added some more diecuts to embellish the inside of the folder. On the tab of the folder I stamped "good day" from the CTK "Hello Sunshine" stamp set designed by calligrapher April Joy Hill.