Multiple paper colors with Grid Fillers

There may be time when you want to make these grid fillers but don't want them all in the same color - with Design Studio it is easy to use just the right size piece of paper and get the cut that you want. I suggest that you do one cut of the entire sheet of solid cardstock - this will leave you with a handy grid to aid in placement of the smaller pieces.

Take this grid and tape it to the underside of your cutting mat - just a couple of pieces of regular tape on opposites corners will do.



It is helpful if you have a white table to work on - or you can just put a large sheet of white paper beneath the mat so that the "grid lines" are clearly visible like this:



I love the precut 4 1/2 by 6 1/2 mats that are called "Storyboxes" by Creative Memories. They come in various colorways and coordinate to CM papers - here I used an older set in bright colors called "Paradise" (as a CM consultant I had some of this left in my inventory). By cutting the mat into two pieces, one 4 1/2 x 4 1/4 and one 4 1/2 x 2 1/4 I can cover 8 of the nine openings with very little waste. For the last small square, I cut another 4 1/2 x 2 1/4 strip in half - or you are likely to have a scrap that is about 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 around for that spot.

Take these pieces and lay them out on the mat, making sure that they are centered over the openings where the cut will be made. You may want to have your CDS file open so you can see which color is covering which shape and place them accordingly.





You can double check the placement by holding the mat up to a strong light and checking to be sure that the smaller pieces are centered over the openings where the cuts will be made, like this:



Be sure that you double check and orient your grid in the same direction as shown on the computer screen - I got distracted while trying this and turned it by 90 degrees - you can see the ooops! results here (the pink grid over the properly placed pieces on the right shows how the openings ended up and the resulting cut off shapes are on the left):



Of course, being a frugal scrapper, I saved these figuring that I could possibly place it at the edge of a page and make it look like "I meant to do that!"

Here the mat is in the big E which is cutting pieces in just the colors I want.



The file for this is the same as in the post about the markers - here it is again to make it handy for you:

Grid fillers with solid shapes