Finally a Technique!

I've got to back up a few days and share this with you. As the ladies began to arrive last Thursday night for stamp club, several would enter the studio, select a table and a seat, say hello and then ask if there'd been a technique posted that they missed. They were right to question me since the previous Thursday's post suggested this would be a regular item each week. But it was a crazy day and I had no time for a technique. To make up for that, I have 2 for you today. Actually more if we're being totally accurate, so please enjoy, and yes, check back on Thursday for another.
Our swap item for the STARS October meeting was a 5x8 legal pad, creating a decorative cover. Some of us made more than one, so the photo above shows my second pad, still incomplete. But Sharon was the last to leave the studio and the only person to see it, so she requested I post the technique because she really liked the look of this. I had envisioned using papers with texture that I'd run through the Sizzix, but I didn't use them. And I also envisioned it with stamped sayings, but those haven't been added either. Instead I'm going to give you the basics and let your imagination lead you down a path of your own.
First select your palette of colors. Mine are more bold than you're seeing here, but you get the idea. Feel free to use scraps; I certainly did. Then cut a piece of white cardstock to completely cover the pad. This will be the base to which you'll adhere all your elements.
Once I selected the colors, I laid a roll of painter's tape on top of the green cardstock and traced a semi-circle, which I cut out to be my "sun" image. Any round item will work (cups, saucers, bowls).
My semi-circle is not glued down. Instead I held it in place, slipped a magenta scrap of paper underneath it, and using a ruler, I drew a line where my "ray" would need to be trimmed.
This piece of cardstock is glued to the white. Use your Xyron to add adhesive to all strips and add them at the end if you prefer, or use a tape runner and adhere each one as it's trimmed to fit.

Place a second color against one edge of the first, and using your ruler, draw a line to cut for the width of the "ray".
Once your white cardstock cover is completely covered, you'll see a rainbow of color.
Turn it over to the backside and trim off all the overlapping pieces.
Adhere each piece, adding the semi-circle last. Now stamp a sentiment on each band of color. Or attach fortunes you've saved from all those Chinese take-away dinners. Collage on top using transparencies, foreign text, or add sunrays as I did in the first photo of this post. The possibilities are endless, so take a few minutes to play. And if you're not interested in covering a notepad, use this technique for the front of a card, for a bookmark, for the page of a journal, or for the background of an ATC.

Another suggestion would be to replicate this technique but with a variety of techniques you've made yourself. Or use some of your paper ephemera (ledger paper, sheet music, newspaper, wrapping paper, handmade paper).

It's clearly time to play.