Designer Tip by Elizabeth of Elizabeth's Market Cross!

Have you ever played around with edge overlays? I use them a TON for my own layouts. They add so much visual interest to a background without covering the central focus, and can change the entire ‘feel’ of your page. You can mix and match them, stack, recolour, rotate them, mirror them – there are just so many possibilities with this kind of embellishment!

Here is an example of how an edge overlay makes this otherwise rather flat background come alive:

An overlay on different backgrounds changes things up yet again, so you can use them over and over. In this example, even without mirroring, rotating, recoloring, or stacking, you still have three unique new backgrounds:

Sometimes an edge overlay is almost the only embellishment you need to enhance your special photos or complete a page of journaling:

They work equally well on graphic style or paper style layouts, and you never need to add a drop shadow to an overlay edge – it is there simply to enhance and change the look of your background or photo. Make sure to add it as the layer directly above your background or full-page sized photo, then add shadowed elements on top of it:

 

You can even use them with dramatic effect on plain black or white as a background – no scrapbooking ‘paper’ needed:

  

 

Many of my kits contain overlay edges which are not obvious in the sample images, but you can find packs of overlay edges in the ‘embellishment’ category.  Mine come in sets of five and occasionally I will include a bonus background.  Here are a few of my favorites:

I hope you decide to have a play with edge overlays! To me they are so much fun!

Thanks for stopping by – and come by my facebook designer page for the monthly blog train freebies!  https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethsMarketCross/

Elizabeth