free backing designs

The prototypical SoulCollage®  deck contains four-plus-one suits of cards - the Committee, the Council, the Community, and the Companions. There are also three Transpersonal cards (that's the "plus-one"), which are rather different. If you are using suits (which is not a requirement), it's handy to put a backing paper onto your cards so you can easily pick out a card from a certain suit without knowing in advance which particular card you are choosing.

Even if you aren't using the suits you might choose to back your cards if you are using upcycled cardboard (e.g. boxes made of non-corrugated cardboard) for the cards!

"SoulCollage® does not advocate copying or infringing on the copyrighted work of others in any way", (this is a statement taken direct from the Principles of SoulCollage®) so I think many people use wrapping paper to back their cards. But one woman who trained with me told the story of going back to the store when she needed more and not being able to find that pattern anymore! It occurred to me to hunt for free scrapbook backgrounds online, and download some to use as SoulCollage backgrounds. Since they're free and intended for sharing it seemed the perfect solution to me.

Here are some sites I've found useful:

• Activity Village Scrapbook Paper
• Freebies from Papercraft Inspirations Magazine
• the Crafticious blog
• (the last link is to Halloween (!) resources, but there's no reason a pretty-coloured web needs to be saved only for Halloween)