Use Digital Designs to create a shabby look

Let’s admit it, one of the most popular and stunning designs to use today in craft projects, scrapbooks and other creative ideas is the ‘shabby’ look. It gives an old-fashioned yet fresh and feminine look to anything you force it onto. All over the web you will come across blog posts that state the fact and give guides on how to create your look. A lot of blogs and websites even incorporate that particular design onto their grand home look as well.

It’s really up to you how you use it and what you do with it but from using it in your home, your car, your office to spicing up those dull craft projects you’ve been working on – you can be guaranteed to make others smile with your inspiring creativity.

Flowery Backgrounds

When you think of shabby, you think of old, timeworn designs that have a feminine and sometimes antique look about them. If you’re a girl and you love all things floral then there are some great paper designs that you can use for your projects.

Sometimes even a subtle design with bold colours will do wonders or even a brash design with pastel colours. It all depends on the type of project and the other elements involved.

Use shabby, flowery, vintage backgrounds to frame a photo. Rather than just popping that picture into a frame you can use digitally printed designs to actually mount the photo, creating a backdrop.

This look goes great with edited photos in black and white and even naturally shot photos – the one’s that someone didn’t know you were taking. Hang them in a proud place and even use the same design as symmetrical pieces of art either side to create a stunning piece of work in your home.

Light, pastel designs with a floral pattern are typically used for wedding invites, stationary and other similar paper ideas.

You can choose from light blues, greens, and purples or even go for reds and oranges but it’s a great idea to choose the highlighting colour which will be the chief key point in your wedding. Use them on stationary, and even use a calligraphy type font to add to the shabby look.

Flowers and flora type patterns and motifs can also be bought out in 3D in or on your scrapbooking or similar paper crafts. Purchase designs that look frayed and torn and create 3D flowers to stick onto your projects to give an additional flowery, girly yet vintage look.

Designs with worded print

Sometimes the most elegant designs to use are the ones that have words printed onto them. Most designs use repeated words, quotes or even designs that look like a magazine or newspaper page. These aren’t the most effective for stationary or business card ideas but they are great for wall hangings, photo frame ideas, scrapbooks and even decoupage items. Use them vividly and don’t be afraid to overdo it.

These prints really give an old feel and a shabby look to your projects especially black and white designs or tea-stained colours like orange-brown with a touch of another colour such as red, purple or even green. These designs work best with fewer colours because of the intricate word designs that are used.

Again for this type of backdrop or theme you need a specific idea in mind on how to use it. Sometimes it’s better used less; sometimes it’s better used as more.  Add it to your blog; stick it in your scrapbook, decoupage it onto an old trunk or print it off as an invite design. Whatever your choice – you will get that shabby look instantly.