{3 ways with a sketch}

I love working with sketches - they are a great way to kick start a layout if you are feelinga little bit 'mojo challenged'. But even if you are not, they can be a fantastic way to get those creative juices flowing. I often re-use sketches, because quite a lot of the time, by the end of the layout creating process you can't really tell that it came from a particular sketch. 

Here's a sketch that I drew a little while ago - I had ordered a few 12x5" photos from Photobox, so this sketch was created with those in mind. I'm going to show you three things that I've made using this one sketch.

I've used papers and embellishments from the lovely Margarita range from American Crafts for all the projects in this post.

First up, using one of the photos that I made the sketch specifically for. This is a photo I have scrapped before in a different format, but I really love it, so I don't mind scrapping it again, and this time it's in black and white and a different size/shape of photo. This layout sticks pretty faithfully to the sketch - it's one photo, and all the elements are where they are shown in the sketch. There's no doubting that the two go together, and that's fine with me!

 I added lots of journalling to this page in a strip to the right hand side of the photo - it tells of the adventure of motherhood, and how this photo was just the very beginning of the greatest adventure there is. It's pretty sentimental, and paired with the black and white photo this page could have easily gone down the pastels route, but I felt it needed brighter colours for a bit of pop! I like that although I'm talking about the fairly serious stuff about being a mum - the hard times and the intense love for a child, the page is also saying that being a mum is partly about fun!

My second layout also came from the sketch, although you may not notice the connection at first, but I promise you it did! This is a great example of how a sketch can be a jumping off point, and whilst it's fine to stick to it, it's also fine to let your creativity wander off in all sorts of directions. 

The background of this page is a sheet of glazed cardstock, misted and then wiped whilst still wet - the ink wipes clean off the glazed sections and creates a fun pattern . I rotated the sketch 90 degrees clockwise, and split the one big photo into 3 small photos, then I shrunk those down in size too. I still added the photo border with ribbon and a punched strip at the bottom. According to the sketch in this position, the title should be above the photo, but that didn't look right on these particular photos - no problem, just move it, at the bottom it goes. Instead of a block of patterned paper, I added a stream of cut out elements from a sheet of patterned paper, and layered them up for dimesion. The top right of my page looked a little bare. Again, technically according to the sketch there isn't an element placed there, but because I've fiddled around with things it was needed. 

I love how this page and the one before both started at the same point, but putting them next to each other you wouldn't know, that's how versatile sketches can be. 

Lastly, although I got into scrapbooking through cardmaking, I'm not much of a cardmaker! However, as I'm sure many of you also experience, as a 'crafter' in general, people come to expect a handmade card and I often struggle! Sketches are my saviour for cards. Pretty much any scrapbooking sketch can be easily adapted for a card. For this one I simply flipped the sketch round, replaced the photo with a block of patterned paper, and kept the elements as per the sketch, replacing the title with a sentiment. Et voila!

{Love}

Jen Naulls

I admit it, I have a bit of a weak spot for themed papers. Be it Halloween, Christmas or Valentine's, I do love so many of the ranges that come out, but I'm often left with lots of stash and not enough themed photos to go with it. I know many scrappers overlook the themed sections of shops, but you'll often find that collections include many versatile prints in cute colour combinations, without being covered in hearts or snowmen or bats, and the B-sides are always worth a look too!

For this post I challenged myself to use a set of themed papers in both a conventional and non-conventional way, and I have to say I'm thrilled with how different the pages are. Most of my papers and embellishments for these pages are from the  

American Crafts 'Love' 

range - I adore the quality of American Crafts products, and love that they always have lots of coordinating embellishments. 

Remember you can click any of the pictures in this post to see them bigger. 

The 'stick-to-the-theme' layout

I really went for it on the love theme for this page! I used a wedding photo, so straight away I'm right in the intended zone of these papers with all their hearts and lovey sentiments. Sometimes I think we all need a bit of the mushy love stuff in our scrapbooks!

I focused on lots of layering on this page. Before I stuck anything down I asked myself 'can I add another layer to that?' and often I found that just backing an element with an additional cardstock border added a huge amount of depth and interest to the page. I scuffed the edges of most of the things on this page with my fingernail, for a little bit of extra dimension. 

For the border made with the mini hearts paper, I cut a 12x1.5" strip, then punched it to a scallop shape on one edge (using a Fiskars scallop sentiment border punch), then I very roughly folded & pleated it (you might need to stick a few of the pleats down with a small dab of glue otherwise it has a tendency to pop up off the page!).

I used four different kinds of Thickers on this page:

Delight Foam Thickers in Cherry

Merry Foam Thickers in Cherry

Rainboots Puffy Thickers in Powder

Salutations Fabric Thickers in Carnation

Sticking closely to the love theme, my title is simply 'Love, love, love'. This title should be sung to the tune of 'All you need is Love', I can't seem to say it any other way! 

I added a subtitle by simply using one of the dimensional sticker sentiments layered up over a tag and a couple of other little elements. Premade embellishments like this are great for layering.

I always try and think of the 'visual triangle' when I make my pages, and so for this layout I created three clusters of embellishments, all based around tags, with a punched butterfly or two for good measure. By adding a triangle of embellishments you pull all the elements of the page together, and allow the eye to flow naturally over the page. This is my go-to technique whenever I am stuck on a layout - creating 3 small embellishment clusters around my photo.

The 'outside the box' layout

This page really has nothing to do with Valentine's, or weddings, or love (although I did add one teeny tiny heart for posterity!). This page is all about how I'm a country girl at heart, and although I have lived in big cities (Leeds and Norwich), I much prefer a quieter pace of life surrounded by fields and forests. The photos were actually taken at the end of April this year on a girly scrapbooking weekend - we took a lovely walk on the Saturday afternoon to take in the sights, including these miniature ponies. These are just pictures that seemed to suit the theme of my layout, and I could lay my hands on easily!

I used a really simple misting technique to liven up the plain background sheet that I used as the base of this page. Simply place a doily (some cute doilies available in the shop here) on the page - I placed mine into the bottom left corner, adhering it in the centre with a small amount of repositionable adhesive (Herma is great for this job!). I chose a mist that was a similar shade to the background, but a darker colour , and sprayed all over the doily mask. Then simply allow the mist to dry and remove the doily leaving you with a beautifully intricate pattern upon which you can layer up your photos and embellishments.

I found plenty of lovely papers in this collections which weren't covered in hearts - some stripes, floral and scroll papers caught my eye for this particular page. I inked and scuffed the edges of everything for a slightly muddy, country look!

Even the elements of a collection which at first glance appear very 'in theme' can be used on out of the box pages. I used some of the tags here - ones with stripes and scrolls on fitted the layout fine, and altered a couple of the dimensional stickers by removing the little heart topper and replacing it with a threaded button. 

So there we have it, two very different layouts from one themed collection. 

I challenge you (just for fun!) to use a themed collection for a page on a totally different subject to the intended theme - I'd love to see what you do, so leave a link in the comments section!