I love the look of stacked papers. Love! Sometimes though I struggle with the overlapping edges. I especially struggled while creating the header for our current LAD (layout-a-day): Winter Whites. I wanted to show off multiple papers, a stacked paper, and still have them POP.

“Popping” is hard when you are working with white & light papers. Here I am working with Schwarzwald Design and Cindy Ritters Winter Whites papers. I tried 4 different methods to stack these two papers:

  1. Doing nothing to the papers is very blah & does nothing for either paper.
  2. Using lace (this is TraceyB Creations lace from Winter Whites) is my favorite alternative.
  3. Adding a shadow helped, but didn’t wow me.
  4. Blending the two might work, it just didn’t pop.

Luckily for me, part of my job is creating a limited-edition bonus for our Anthology every month. In December I worked with the incredibly gorgeous & scrappable Of Beauty & Grace by Manu Scraps. I combined her collection with the matching Of Beauty & Grace templates by Heartstrings Scrap Art to create one of my favorite layouts to date:

I decided to borrow the torn edge from Bryony’s (Heartstring Scrap Arts) template. This went so well, I want to continue using it LOL! I love the look. It is the perfect look for layering white & light papers. I may now have a torn edge addiction.

With Bryony’s permission, here is a quick & easy way to use her torn edges on your own layout without using the entire template.

  • Open your background paper
  • Drag in your 2nd paper

  • Open of Beauty & Grace Template no. 04
  • Click & select all three layers of the torn paper:
    1. Torn paper – clip paper
    2. Torn paper edge
    3. Torn paper Drop Shadow

  • Drag & drop all three layers into your layered papers document

If you dragged your layers above both papers:

  • Select & click all three layers; and
  • Drag them under your top paper

It’s finally time to create your torn paper effect!

  • Select your top paper
  • Right-click, be sure you are on that top layer
  • Choose Create Clipping Mask

TaDA! Your top paper now has a beautiful torn edge. So easy. So fun!

My finished stacked paper:

I’ve taken just Bryony’s torn edge and made a quick & easy template for you to recreate this on your own, with papers of your choice.

You can also buy the entire set Of Grace & Beauty Templates, now on sale for 30% Off!