Hello friends, thanks for joining me for my first fall layout.  I noticed a paper folding trend a few months ago that I’ve been wanting to try involving a cascade of folded paper strips.  When thinking of autumn, my first thought is always of falling leaves, so I thought this would be a good technique to pair with a fall photo.  I pulled out my trimmer, score board, and the Forever Fall collection for this layout celebrating things I love about autumn.  Fall tends to come late in California, and at the first signs I can’t get into cozy sweaters and mittens fast enough.

The layouts I’d seen using these folded paper strips were pastel colors and I wanted to put my spin on it with darker colors.  I started off with the denim side of the Be Grateful paper as my background.  It already has stitching and splatter details, so I knew I could concentrate on all the goodies on top.

I cut strips from several of the papers in the collection in varying widths from one to two inches, then cut all of them into three inch lengths.  I scored them in the middle to have crisp folds, then ran the cut ends through my sewing machine to make them into little folded banners.  I placed my photo just off center because I knew I wanted a cascade of the papers coming down from the top in diagonal across the corners of the photo. This is a favorite design layout of mine.  I played with overlapping the folded banners upwards and downwards from the photo, then embellished them with chipboard, die-cuts, and square stickers from the 4x6 Stickers pack.

I clustered pairs of die-cut and chipboard leaves in three spots to reinforce the diagonal. You’ll note that the bottom pile of papers and embellishments doesn’t extend to the bottom diagonal.  I like a bit of asymmetry and often have one side closer to the corners and edges of my page than the other. The large “happy autumn” from the Combo Stickers were the perfect size to lay across the bottom edge of the photo.  They stand out from all the busy layers.  Since the folded papers have stitching that shows through in random areas, I added stitching to the title to tie it in.  Plus who doesn't like a stitched title? :)

For my journaling, I just used word strips. The sheet had all my favorite things and more!  I nestled them in the space under the title and finished off with a date label from the Bits & Pieces pack. 

There was a space to the left of the photo under the top cascade of papers that felt empty, so I filled it with the chipboard mason jar.  This also helps balance out the other end of the stitched title.  Most of the layout is made up of horizontal lines.  To break that up, I filled in spaces next to the leaf clusters with little round stickers.  For added interest,  I stapled a few elements with my tiny attacher.

I struggled a bit because I wanted to add all the cute fall stickers to this layout, but I pared it down since the folded papers provided quite a bit of visual weight.  That just means that I can go crazy with the embellishments in my next Forever Fall layout! :)