I want to jump in but I am scared.

I started out paper scrapping 6 years ago. I still love my paper stuff. I like the feel of it. KWIM? I have been searching my local craft stores for chipboard albums and I am not having any luck. So the other day I was at Michael's and I saw some chipboard/cardboard star ornaments. I bought 7 of them, because there are 7 of us. I want to make ornaments for each of us, but I don't know how to make the template. Normally I would scan one at 300dpi and do a practice layout. But my scanner won't work with my new lappy because of vista. Any tips how I could get the dimensions right without killing 30 trees in the process??

I don't have a scanner, so I never scan any of the stuff that use in my hybrid projects.

I would measure the ornament at it's fullest height and widest width, and make a square just a smidge bigger than those dimensions. Then you just plop the flattened jpg's onto a fresh 8.5x11 file, flatten that, print, cut out and go to it!

that is a tough question!

what I would do is measure across the star from point to point. that will give you a rough idea of how big the stars truly are. at that point, I probably would figure out what background paper you are going to use and print squares of it bigger than the size of your star. so if your stars are 6" across point to point, do 7 inch squares of your background paper. print the squares of paper, adhere, let dry and trim around your stars.

then I'd go to work designing the next layers like a layout and print minus the background paper you've already printed.

if your star is going to be different layers using pop dots, you can create your star layout and then just print each layer, cut and adhere.

just some suggestions - maybe someone else will be able to come up with something easier LOL....

PS...you can always print a draft/grayscale of your flattened star design to check for fit. I find that even when I trace and scan in a shape for a template, it never seems to fit correctly for some reason :blink:

Thanks, I will try that. I will post back and let you know how it goes.