Ella and Viv Paper Company - Tinker Tray Collection - 12 x 12 Paper - Box of Buttons

Cut it down first thing

Gasp. Some lady who knows how she uses paper... personal opinion. This be big buttons, folks. The very biggest at almost 1". If you put the typical photograph next to it, that 1" yellow one is the size of the sun. And most of the buttons are overlapping so you can't really do the sneaky bit and cut out individual buttons.

By cutting this paper down I can now use monotone groups of buttons as accents, ephemera, or textured color. For instance, die cut a sun in gold foil paper and put it on top of the red buttons, same for a shell on the brown ones.

One easy option is to tone the paper down with thin white paint or gesso for a misty look. Another tactic is to have your images covering up some of the boxes, leaving the others as buttons.

This Tinker Tray line for Ella & Viv is bright and interesting, but they do take some extra effort. The extra large images means they standout against other scrapbook papers and source material.