One sketch three ways
Hi all, it’s Jen N here with you again and this month I’ve been working with a sketch and a selection of older supplies whilst I (not so) patiently waited for all the new goodies to start arriving in the shop. The great news is that those wonderful new products have stated to arrive – yippee! Keep your eye on the “Coming Soon” list and the “New Products” category to see the new arrivals.
I love working with sketches and I find it a useful way to kick start a page. I usually make my own, and usually make one page first then turn it into a sketch and make a couple more from it. That’s exactly what I did this time with these three pages. First of all I made this layout, featuring a square photo in black and white, of my daughter and I. A classic phone selfie. I don’t usually worry about colour matching photos to papers too much anyway, but printing in black and white does allow you to go with absolutely anything colour scheme wise. The heart paper (from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm collection) was my inspiration for the colour scheme, and I picked a selection of prints in coordinating colours from my scraps box. These included the orange print from Jillibean Soup Spicy Social Soup, the blue stripe from Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm and the blue chevron from Crate Notes & Things. The background sheet was from an older Crate Paper line – Flea Market.
I’ve recently seen a lot of lovely dies appearing with new collections, and of course there are some great die cutting companies featured on the shop site too. Now I personally haven’t die cut anything for a number of years, having an old Cuttlebug machine languishing unloved in the back of a cupboards! Maybe that should say “hadn’t” rather than “haven’t” because this month I put that right! I treated myself to a couple of metal dies from Memory Box and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how easy they are to use and how clean a cut they give even given how delicate the design is. I added embellishments from Crate Notes & Things ephemera and stickers, a Hey Little Magpie exclusive flair, and a gold glitter heart from American Crafts DIY Shop along with a couple of other bits I found on my desk. The little stamped circle with “smile” in the middle is the Heidi Swapp for Project Life interchangeable stamp, which is just adorable!
Once I’d finished making this page, I quickly sketched it out in my notebook. I don’t do this precisely at all. For me it’s just a way of seeing where the elements are on a layout, whilst eliminating the distraction of colour schemes and photos. I like to keep it fairly basic, as I find it helps me make the subsequent pages look different to the first, it really is just a kickstarter.
I then set about making my second page, having rotated the sketch 90 degrees clockwise. I stuck with the one photo design this time, but used a larger photo from a couple of years ago when we were just the three of us! This wasn’t a special day, just a random weekend playing in the garden, but I adore this photo as it really captures the fun we were having. The gorgeous wood grain background is from My Mind’s Eye’s Jubilee collection, as is the fun yellow polka dot and the floral design. I stretched the largest paper element part of the design to go all the way across the page which gives quite a different look to the layout. I made the vertical element much shorter and wider so as not to cover up the typography on the background sheet. I added embellishments from most of the same packets as my first page, but also added a couple of elements from Gossamer Blue. The blue and white heart ensign is from the Jubilee line 3×4 card pack – I love these packs for the cute designs that are just ready to pop on a page and layer around.
For the third page I rotated the sketch again, by another 90 degrees. This time I used a filmstrip of 4 photos, which instantly makes the page feel different to the others. This was simply made by making a collage of 4 photos on a 6×4 print on my phone, then cutting them apart and backing onto plain white cardstock. I again used papers from Jubilee by My Minds Eye, but a different colour way to the page above. There are also papers from Shimelle’s collection here, and layered pieces from Crate Notes & Things. I included a couple of extra gold elements to complement the Thickers by using some Stickles glitter glue on the butterfly (cut out from Crate Notes & Things paper), and in dots on the bottom right.
Aren’t the hearts adorable? The little white enamel heart is from Pebbles and the pale pink with writing is from Crate Kiss Kiss – I love these brads so much, they’re so cute!
Let me know if you create a page using the sketch that I’ve used – I’d love to see!
