pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

Strangely, Glitter Girl sounds a little hoarse lately, and I’ve wound up down for the count. Instead of coming to you not-quite-live from the camera in my studio, I come to you propped up on a zillion pillows and ready to be over this already. But I’m not. Trust me to go all winter without succumbing to a cold and then doing so in a royal fashion once spring arrives.

I am mostly upset that I am currently missing Pink Tree Week as frankly, this is not acceptable.

But to get back to the point of all things crafty, I really want to share these sketches and guest interpretations with you even though I’m not quite up to crafting just yet. I’m hoping soon. Very soon. To sweeten the deal until then, I have two sketches for you, with pages by Diana Waite and Amy Tan, and a special discount code for a very limited time, all here for you today.

This sketch might remind you a little of a layout from years ago that I reposted just yesterday in that discussion of what to do with scraps. Except then I used it with 4×4 photos, and here the idea of lots of circles is matched with an oversized photo. Or at least that was what I imagined in my head… it’s not exactly what spoke to Diana, however!

I really liked the clean lines of the sketch. I had a few goals in mind: add some techniques I don’t normally use, try something I haven’t done while using up my stash! One of the techniques I decided to try was adding vellum to my page. I’ve had vellum in my stash for a long time and have been afraid to use it! Using my 3 different sized circle punches I punched out circles and added those to the side of my layout generally following the circles found there. I carefully sewed those pieces of vellum down for my adhesive. I also added a piece of vellum to top of my journaling—and I like the look! I also added mist which isn’t a new technique, I just don’t use my mist very often. I wanted to highlight one last technique that I have always thought was magic; heat embossing. Using a versa mark ink I stamped behind where I knew I was going to place my photo, then I covered the ink with clear embossing ink. I used clear embossing powder because I wanted my layout to stay in a monochromatic tone so that the green in the pictures would pop! I mentioned before that liked the clean lines of the sketch I wanted to keep that “feeling” while multiple photos in a four inch square. I kept them small so that the viewer’s eye would really focus on the hilarious faces my son was making. Of course being a boy there were noises as well!

The photos were taken on Halloween right as the sun was setting which meant that my son was REALLY wanting me to be quick so he could go trick or treating! Within about 5 minutes I had the perfect ANGRY pictures of the Hulk.

Diana Waite lives in Arizona. She has realized that not only is scrapbooking a creative release but a joyful way to reconnect with her family. One of the best rewards is to catch the kids pulling out their albums and looking at them. Diana has been published in Creating Keepsakes, and Scrapbook Trends Magazines. She is currently designing for American Crafts and Scrapbook Circle. When Diana isn’t paper crafting she is enjoying time with her family, reading, eating chocolate, and exercising. You can find more of Diana’s work on her blog.

No, thank you, Amy. (No really, that’s actually funny to me in this current state. I’ve just laughed for three minutes and then felt quite sheepish that I thought I was funny at all, much less that funny. Anyway. Forgive me. Let’s get away from my bad humour and back to something relevant, shall we?)

I do love a stack of papers all spread out like that, but this sketch was inspired more specifically by a previous Sketch to Scrapbook Page design, found here. (That one does include a video, by the way!) But I wanted to repeat a similar feel but a different finished structure to the design. If you compare those pages to what Amy made, you’ll see just how varied you can get with such a similar exposition!

My mind was full of ideas when I first saw this sketch. I thought about stacking various patterned papers and embellishments along with 3 photos together. Then I got a bit overwhelmed at the thought of it, so I decided to start with some kraft cardstock by American Crafts. To follow the outside line of the sketch, I poked holes around the entire border and back-stitched using baker’s twine. Then I decided to use 3 square photos (3×3” Instagrams from Persnickety Prints) instead of the rectangular photos, and mounted them on a sheet of Studio Calico patterned paper. Embellishments like stickers and wood veneer are some of my favorite things, so I decided to sprinkle them along the side. For journaling, I used an Elle’s Studio tag. I stamped some hearts with Hero Arts Shadow Ink and placed some enamel dots as a finishing touch.

Amy Tan loves creating, leisurely bike rides and relaxing in her little Venice Beach apartment, which she shares with her boyfriend, JC, and her two Jack Russell Terriers, Buster and Bamboo. She’s been working on perfecting what she likes to think of as the “art of truly living,” which includes working smarter instead of harder; globetrotting; achieving balance in daily life; and collaborating with other creative people. You can see what she’s up to at her blog.

SPECIAL OFFER
Amongst other things, Amy Tan designs with Studio Calico, and just for fun we have a special discount code if you’ve been considering a kit club description. Code Shimelle30 is good for 30% off a new scrapbook kit subscription starting with the current kit, Spencer’s. But it is for a very limited time, and the offer ends at midnight (Studio Calico time) on Saturday (the 20th of April). Click here, select the subscription button, and enter the code at check out to claim your discount.

Thank you Amy and Diane for sharing your beautiful pages, though it is making me want to get up and paste things together even more! Soon, soon!!

Comment [13]

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I love coming back to a few old standby designs and just changing a few small elements to the general outline of the page to make something new. This sketch is one of those examples.

It’s also an example of having zero problem with taking my page titles from Saturday Night Live sketches. (I’ll give you a topic.)

This sketch is designed for three 4×6 photos all facing the same direction, making it particularly useful for action shots in a sequence, but I’ve used the all-in-a-row concept for plenty of pages that just happen to include three portraits or three landscapes too. In fact, there’s a whole video from the 4×6 Photo Love series just about scrapping three photos, and that was the basis for the most recent Glitter Girl Adventure too. This time, instead of running a long border to connect the three photos, the sketch uses three separate elements to fill the page with repetition, providing plenty of room for journaling and embellishment.

The supplies here are a bit of a mix: the embellishments come from the March Best of Both Worlds product picks, but the papers include a sheet of kraft cardstock and scraps of the two non-kit papers I used for this page, which is the facing page in the album. And just a bit of that yellow patterned paper that forms the background of that page, stolen with a punch from the part that is covered by another layer. There is also some dark brown Mister Huey’s ink and some brown candy dots by Pebbles – they are much like the enamel dots but with a matte finish instead of glossy.

I know that’s a bit of a liberal use of the kit but almost all of us have other things in our stash aside from what we order one month, right? This month it turned out that I used my papers quicker than my embellishments, so I have a few more things to share with you about how I got to the end of the March kit!

These photos are the type of pictures I find on my camera when I’ve been setting up a shot – the sort of thing where everyone gets in the right spot, but someone has to set up the camera to frame it and get the focus, then click the self-timer and run into the shot just in time. I always just tell people to talk amongst themselves while I’m messing with the camera, but secretly I love these shots because they are always so natural and show everyone just being themselves and interacting as they really would, like the camera isn’t even there. So I never delete pictures like this really – and I like how they can sit on the facing page in my album to show a behind-the-scenes glimpse at getting an ‘official’ group picture. There’s a slightly more extended version of this idea shown here, with a much bigger group of crafty girls too. Too many shots there to fit into this sketch though!

Today’s guest creates beautiful scrapbook pages, but almost always in the 8.5×11 size, so I was interested to see what Kristina Nicolai-White would do with a sketch that is so mathematically aligned to the 12×12 page. I love her result, with a delicate page and a single square photo, and really enjoyed hearing what she had to say about her creative process in getting from the sketch to her finished scrapbook page.

As busy as my life is these days – with three active teenage kids – I don’t find a lot of time to actually scrapbook. But when I do, it is usually about a moment. A brief moment in time that I don’t want to forget. I don’t take a lot of time to record the “firsts” or main events anymore. Because of this, I don’t usually have more than one photo that I want to actually use on a page, if any at all. However, this sketch is obviously made for three photos. I weighed out repeating my photo three times and popping up the middle for emphasis, or putting a layer of vellum over two of the three. I am an 8.5×11 scrapbooker, rather than a 12×12, so this also makes it more difficult for three 4×6 photos, unless they are smaller than a standard 4×6 print. In the end I decided to use the grey area in the sketch as more of a composition guideline rather than a rule for where the photos should lie in the composition. The grey area became the main design area for me, and instead of it being a stack of photos I used one wide piece of paper and took it from the top to the bottom as seen in the sketch. Within this area I placed my photo with the idea that my title would lie approximately in the same space shown on the sketch, in the right upper 1/3 of the composition.

I really wanted to emphasise the pink in this photo, but in trying not to take it too over the top, I used a cream/white wide chevron paper (from this pack by Crate Paper) as the background and left most of it as free space. I used a pink ombre paper from Dear Lizzy for that main greyed area where the sketch intends to be photos. The rest of the patterned papers and scraps that I used to lift up and create focus around the photo are shades of white and gray. I wanted to create a more dreamy quality to the layout as it already exists in the photo. I had edited this photo previously with several layers of filters and bokeh treatments. I really wanted the colors and papers to further convey the dreamy love feeling in the layout. The direction of the layout is almost all leading down, my daughter in the photo is looking down at her pointe shoes, the pink ombre paper is going from light to dark while the white chevron is pointing down. And then the pink triangle stack on the left side is leading up to the heart. I used few embellishments, only some Studio Calico Mister Huey mist to add depth to the pink ombre paper, a few die cuts thrown in to the paper layers, a single brad, some white sequins and a few enamel dots from My Mind’s Eye. I finished this layout with a simple title using bot letter stickers and a pen, and a date stamp.

Kristina Nicolai-White has been scrapbooking and memory keeping in various forms for most of her life. Founding and owning the online scrapbooking company Two Peas in a Bucket has kept her active and part of the scrapbooking industry for more than 15 years. Kristina loves using her iPhone to document the craziness of her everyday life with three active teenage children, two giant dogs and her high school sweetheart husband. Her work is usually full of color, products and blurry photos. You can find more of Kristina’s work in her Two Peas gallery, of course.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

Comment [7]

Time to return to Disneyland photos! And still not a Mickey Mouse embellishment in sight. I know some of you may be smashing your head against the desk for that, but my train of thought is that I don’t own any licensed products like that and I would really like to scrapbook these photos without adding products to my pages that are so far removed from what I use on most of my layouts – so just like I haven’t used Harry Potter products on my Harry Potter scrapbook pages, I’m not planning to use Disney products on my Disney scrapbook pages. I hope that seems sensible – to use what I have and love – and if you love patterned papers and embellishments with the Disney characters, then I would be right there cheering for you to use them! (Which leads me a bit to a recent treatise I wrote on scrapbook storytelling here, which leads to what is often my overwhelming cheer to the scrapbooking world: All hail variety!)

This page sketch was originally designed with a panoramic portrait photo in mind – a 4×12 inch column taken from a single image. But the truth is I always have grand ideas for prints like that but actually have thousands of 4×6 prints to hand and little motivation to print special sizes like 4×12! So I used two portrait photos stacked to create that column, then three smaller square photos. On the sketch they are more like two inches square, and I imagined this as a good way to mix ‘proper’ photos with phone photos, but in truth I didn’t take any phone pictures at Disneyland and instead cropped the squares from standard prints, choosing a few nice details from photos that I didn’t feel fabulous enough to warrant their own pages in my album.

This page uses mostly supplies taken from my March Best of Both Worlds product picks, but I added a sheet of pink chevron by Crate Paper for the 12×12 background and some pink baker’s twine.

If you’re just reading and not watching the video, I can tell you I already know that embellishment grouping in the middle of the photos is going to be a love/hate choice. On the sketch, it’s a much simpler, smaller embellishment, and I think it would be less jarring that way, but I chose to make it almost as heavy in weight as the other two embellishment groupings, and it is a little unexpected in the middle of the page. I decided to go with it anyway and lightened it by using a small bit of text cut from a larger sticker instead of the same size rectangle as the other two clusters. I’m also okay with it because I looked carefully at what I was covering up on the photos and there is nothing covered that I really wanted to be visible. This is a prime example of when I decide to just try something on camera and see what I think. Is it my favourite embellishment of all time? No. But it didn’t upset me either: I’m quite happy with how it gives the page quite a whimsical look, like it’s not taking Disney too seriously. And now you know exactly how much I over-analyse my design choices!

Today’s guest artist, Sophie Crespy, has a less literal interpretation of the sketch, and a beautiful page to share with you. I hope it sparks your creativity!

I love this sketch because of its simple lines and multiple photos: typically my type of design! I changed the square photos for a rectangle one and turned the sketch around into a horizontal layout: that way the vertical photos are balanced by the horizontal pieces of patterned papers. I love the visual triangle created by the stars on the sketch: it brings balance to the page. A visual triangle is a design tactic I use often: you can find a visual triangle on my layout created by the colours? I placed three yellow elements on my page: can you spot them? The two pieces of doily and the piece of yellow paper on the bottom left. It helps the eyes to travel on the page, from the photos to the journaling. I also replaced the stars by some stitched elements on my page, created with the new Amy Tangerine Embroidery Stencil kits. It matches the theme of my photos: my son helping me to sew a costume for his sister. I like to mix textures on my layouts: here and there is hand and machine stitching, rub-ons and buttons. The kraft envelope adds interest and creates a frame for the first photo. The photos are mounted on dimensional adhesive and the peg also adds depth to the overall design.

Sophie is a part-time teacher from France. She lives in the Alps with her husband and two children. She started scrapbooking five years ago in order to document her daily life. During those years, her style changed tremendously until she found her own style: fresh, bold and colorful, clean with a whimsical twist! She is currently a member of American Crafts and Crate Paper design teams. She also writes articles for French and International magazines such as Entreartistes magazine. She writes about her creative adventures on her blog.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

Comment [3]

Those of you who subscribe over on YouTube got an earlier glimpse of three Sketch to Scrapbook Page videos this week. I’m almost caught up to the dates on the sketches, and when I really do reach that point I may dance around my studio in joy! But now it’s far time for me to get these sketches on the blog so you can see not just the videos, but also the sketches, pages, and unique interpretations by the sketch guests. First up is a two photo layout to document a recent weekend away with friends.

This sketch is designed for my favourite combination of photos – two standard 4×6 prints in the same direction. This time, that’s landscape. Then two patterned papers to make up the background, with one cut on the diagonal to add a quick and easy twist on a really simple page design. I just cut the diagonal with my paper trimmer, angling the paper on its side instead of lining up all tidy like normal. I’m sure there’s some amazing way you can measure this and work it out if there is an exact angle you want to achieve across your page, but I was just going for an angled line and didn’t need to be precise about that.

Most of the supplies here are from my March Best of Both Worlds product picks, but I added in the woodgrain arrow paper and some red patterned paper for the photo mat.

These photos were actually taken at the beginning of March, but it was freezing and definitely felt like the middle of winter. We always have a group photo session when we go away for a weekend now and then, but this one was finished in record time because we couldn’t wait to get back inside to the warm. They will forever make me laugh because I was so cold, I didn’t bother to tie my shoes for wasting time once the door was open. I love these getaways with such lovely and creative girls I’m so lucky to call friends, and I tend to scrap most of the photos we take on our little escapes – so you’ll see a page soon that goes opposite this one in my 2013 album.

Today’s guest, Leslie Ashe, has a different twist on this sketch, having taken her inspiration from different parts of the design that what I first noticed. If the diagonal line isn’t your thing or you don’t want to use two landscape photos, check out how Leslie took her inspiration from the two stacked elements on the left and the stars as embellishments.

This sketch was so fun! It let me be creative in my own way, with keeping with some of the details of the sketch itself. I decided to stay with the rectangle shape by using a 4×6 photo and a journaling card. I wanted to separate the two, so I cut a title with my Silhouette Cameo and placed as a border. I used that as my main title and my subtitle is my note card with numbers and journaling. I love stars so of course I had to use them on this layout about my sweet son! I was inspired by the Elle’s Studio paper and tags (from the Day To Day collection) I used and built my layout from there. Punching several stars to embellish my title really made my project stand out and draw you to my subject.

Leslie Ashe is a born & bred Texan girl who loves to create memories with her family & put them on paper to remember always. She began scrapbooking over sixteen years ago after going to a craft party with friends. She’s blessed to have work published in Scrapbook Trends, Cards, Simply Handmade, Create: Idea Books, and Creating Keepsakes magazines. She designs for American Crafts, Pink Paislee, Lily Bee Design, Prima and Noel Mignon Kit Club. You can see more of her work on her blog, or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

Comment [2]

Usually when I share a Sketch to Scrapbook Page video, I stay quite true to the sketch and the guests sometimes give it a bit of a twist, but today we’re swapping that around. I designed this sketch thinking of triangles cut from various patterned paper scraps, but once I had my supplies on the desk, I decided to take it in a different direction to embrace the current trend of chevrons and arrows. Maybe I will come back and give the triangles a try too, but rest assured, today’s guest has made that look ever so pretty.

I imagined this sketch with a single photo (4×6 or 5×7 would both work) so the triangles form arrows that point to that important picture. You could replace that single photo with a collection of smaller pictures, or include more photos across that central block of the page if that’s better for your style.

The supplies for this page are all from my March product picks for the Best of Both Worlds, plus some paper stars left on my desk from a project months ago and a bit of baker’s twine. The photo is of the fireworks at the end of the closing ceremony at the Olympic Stadium – taken as we were leaving the park just ahead of the crowd. Bittersweet! Although my Olympic album will have a few stories that chronologically take place after this photo, I think it will mark a sort of end to a chapter within that book as it comes together. That’s the plan, anyway!

Today’s guest, Piradee Talvanna, stayed true to the idea of all those paper triangles and I love the look of all the patterns she selected. Plus there’s a little something else with her page that may have made me smile!

I had a fun time using this awesome sketch as it gives you a lot of room to play around with; although I did pretty much keep to the sketch only switching the placement of the title and adding in some fun layering details behind the photo. In creating this layout, I used the Maggie Holmes collection by Crate Paper, which had a lot of fun colors and I wanted to be able to incorporate all the colors into the layout without overwhelming it. Hence I decided to keep the background neutral (one color) and instead played on the arrow design with the various colors and balancing it out with the colorful layering/cluster behind the photo. Also I noticed that the fabric frame from the collection had some staples (to keep the lettering in place) and therefore also added some to the arrow design along with some neutral sequins for more details. On the topic of cupcakes, well what more is there to say? Love them!

Piradee Talvanna is from Bangkok, Thailand but currently lives in Singapore with her husband. It was there that she was introduced to the wonderful world of Scrapbooking in mid 2008 and quickly became addicted to all the beautiful papers and fun embellishments. Scrapbooking not only allows her to explore and challenge her creativity but also helps her de-stress after along day at work. She is currently a design team member for Crate Paper, Maya Road and Webster’s Pages and has been part of the Creating Keepsakes Dream Team Member for 2011, 2012 and 2013. You can find more of Piradee’s work on her blog.

Comment [8]

Sometimes a sketch helps things come together so quickly on a scrapbook page, and I think this might be a design I’ll be coming back to the next time I need to scrap without a lot of time to spare. It came together quickly, yet I really like the end result – and often when I scrap quickly I am quite disappointed with the end page. Not this time, so hurrah for that.

The sketch is designed for two landscape 4×6 photos, a matted square of patterned paper in the background and one tall column down the middle. That column is the same size as the two photos – 4×12. It’s essentially an off-set plus sign, and I’m sure it could be turned and work well too because it’s just basic page geometry of all those rectangles and squares – plus three circle embellishments to balance all those straight lines.

All the supplies for this page come from my March product picks, plus black cardstock, some yellow sewing thread and stamping ink in black and hot pink.

I need to remember that word stamping idea for future pages. I am always lamenting that I have plenty of colours of ink but almost always use the same three ink pads! Definitely liked the bright colour here to change it up, but glad I stamped off that first ultra-strong layer of colour so the tones would be a better match to the patterned papers.

Of course this isn’t the only way you can interpret the page, and today’s guest, Becky Novacek, has her own unique twist – and she shares how she adapted the page from a 12×12 size to her 8.5×11 scrapping style:

It’s Becky here today, sharing my take on this very versatile sketch, that inspired me a lot. I stayed pretty true to the sketch, although it would have been easy to flip it horizontally. Since I’m an 8.5×11 designer, I found it easy to switch it up to the rectangle versus square design. As I approached this layout using the sketch, I enjoyed using many older products, mixed with new products. I find it gratifying to use favorite older and in the case, no longer available beauties. The background paper and the blue/gold pattern papers were part of one of my favorite Hambly collections. I mixed them with new Basic Grey, Amy Tan, Dear Lizzy, Crate and American Crafts, as well as a really fun Pam Garrison stamp. I switched the circle embellishments to hearts.

Becky Novacek lives in Fremont Nebraska with her husband Tom and faithful dog Scooter. Tom and Becky have 4 grown, married children and ten grandchildren. Becky has always been drawn to paper and photos. As she tried different creative endeavors and eventually discovered scrapbooking, she was hooked. It became an almost daily respite after a long day of work in the beginning, and now it has become an important part of her daily work. Creating free style, homespun layouts that speak her thoughts are what she enjoys most about scrapbooking. You can see more of Becky’s work and daily ramblings at Becky Novacek Photography. You can also follow her on Instagram and Pinterest.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

Comment [7]

I’ve been meaning to discuss a little something with all of you about how my philosophy has changed since so much of my teaching now comes in the form of videos. There is one really big idea I hope you will take on board: some times I try things so you don’t have to. I scrap so much and I share almost all of it with the world in some way or another – either in blog posts, in Glitter Girl videos at Two Peas, or in my class content for those of you who sign up for my online scrapbooking workshops. In the past year, I can count the pages I have kept to myself on a single hand.

That doesn’t bother me in the slightest: it is my choice to share with all of you, and if I didn’t want to, then this would not be the right job for me! But it does mean that there isn’t a nice, safe, secluded place for me to go through random ideas without sharing it with you as it happens. If I make every page in a style that’s too similar, you’ll get bored, and some will let me know. If I make every page wildly different from the rest, I won’t be happy with my albums and those of you who like the style I’ve shown you up to now may not be big fans, and some will let me know. So I try different things and I show you right there on the video as it goes. Sometimes I find a real win; sometimes I get the page to a point where I’m happy with it, but I make a big note to self about whatever particular element I probably won’t try again.

When you watch, you can make that decision from what you see, and if you want, you can essentially learn from that in the same way that you learn from a mistake. If I run my title up the side of the page and you don’t like it, you know not to run your title up the side of your page – and you don’t have to go through the stress of moving your title and trying not to ruin your letter stickers to figure it out. Maybe you look at my layout and think you don’t like that patterned paper. Perfect: don’t buy or use that patterned paper. What you see that you don’t like can be just as useful as what you do. But whatever you see? I like it for me and I’m happy to have it in my album – or I would keep working on it or start over!

With this sketch and video, I wanted to really demonstrate what I mean by this process. I wanted to take an idea I have used many times and try it in a way that I hadn’t used before and I wasn’t completely sure would work. I gave it a try and I kept working on the page until I got to a point where I was happy with the layout – but now I know the difference between the way I used this technique on this page and the way I’ve used it before, and I know what I will take forward from there. You can simply look and see what you like and take that forward for your own process without the frustration of discovering it for yourself. I think that’s what I mean. Of course, I also know some of you are stubborn like me and will want to try it for yourself. That’s totally okay too.

Getting on with it then, here’s the sketch. It’s a bunting-inspired banner design across the whole page, on a quite large scale. I’ve used this idea in the past but always on a much smaller scale for the banner, and this time I wanted to use it as a big element that would take up most of the page. Of course, that makes it quite different from the usual way I start my pages with a bunch of different boxes of patterned paper in the background!

This page was made with supplies from the February Best of Both Worlds kit. (And the next sketch video moves to the March kit, by the way.) Of course you can try it with any papers you like! I added some eyelets and twine too, and for those of you who have requested eyelets on pages – I’m afraid this is pretty much the only time I use them these days. I passed my giant jar of eyelets to another scrapper many years ago and haven’t looked back. I just prefer brads, rhinestones, enamel dots, and other simple little embellishments like that to the extra steps of eyelets. But they do add a lovely bit of polish to banners!

Here’s my resulting layout with the idea of banners gone big! But how does it compare to when I’ve used banners on a smaller scale? You can see three different examples in videos when I’ve used them as a smaller part of the page: the Glitter Girl episodes on breaking through scrapper’s block and using scenic patterned paper designs, plus this video when I guested for Studio Calico. But I ask you that in a way that it’s useful for you to figure out for your style! I’m happy with all four layouts in my albums and they all have a different look. If you like one more than the others, then you might want to remember that if you use this sketch but in your own style. All part of the learning process, and drawing those conclusions for yourself can be really important in defining your own style, if that’s something that interests you.

But of course I’m also delighted to include another version from this same page so you can compare already and keep those notes to self in your own mind. So much good stuff with this page by Julie Kirk!

If scrapbook sketches can feel theatrical then this one, with its title taking centre stage and the photos stretched out like a banner, certainly fits the bill making it easy for me to decide which photos to use with it. My sister and I recently spent the day at a ‘Rockabilly Rosie’ workshop where we tried out glamorous vintage-style make up, hairstyles and dance steps. Not all at the same time I might add … although we would have had fun trying! And the retro results seemed just perfect for this style of sketch.

I adapted a few things to help me tell this particular tale such as adding a narrow frame around my background paper as a way to pull in another colour which, like all the shades of papers I chose, was drawn from the colours within the photographs. I also added in a few vintage themed touches like the rip in the top corner and a snippet of text [beneath the left hand photo] which I cut from a 1950s magazine. I couldn’t settle on a way to write my journaling across the page, like the sketch, so I just used a couple of journaling blocks instead. But overall, looking back at my version I realise I’ve stuck fairly closely to the original, which is a bit surprising really as I didn’t think I was that obedient!

Julie Kirk documents everyday stories through her scrapbooking often in combination with vintage supplies and lots of patterned paper. She is regular designer for Papercraft Inspirations and Creativity! Magazines and contributes to the 3DJean design team blog. Through her own blog, ‘notes on paper’ and her Facebook page she shares creative projects, hints and tips, stories, and anything which might raise a smile. Meanwhile she shares her love of vintage supplies through her Etsy shop.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

Comment [14]

I love little groups of random items from my desk that can come together to make some sort of lovely embellishment on a scrapbook page. Well, I guess you knew that. But when it does honestly happen from just bits and pieces sat on the desk – remainders of a kit or cast-offs from other projects – it makes me happier than searching out all those pieces for ages. This was one of those times when the pieces were all there and they just fit into the space to finish the page. A journaling card, then washi tape, a strip of paper to bring in some colour, a label to bring in something lighter, letter stickers for initials, postage stamps with the right numbers to back those, something round to add a bit of variety (and an ampersand), and some stamping to pull everything together. That’s how I finished this most recent Sketch to Scrapbook Page project.

This sketch is designed for those patterned papers you don’t want to cover up. Something with a print you really like to see or a pattern that doesn’t read well in small amounts. It gives you plenty of room for writing and the chance to showcase a 4×6 landscape photo with some repeated embellishment – perfect for punching shapes from papers to make your own accents.

All the supplies used for this project are from the February product picks for Best of Both Worlds, with the addition of a sheet of 12×12 black cardstock for the background and a date stamp at the bottom of the journaling card. I used an embossing stylus for the dotting tool with the mist – that’s a quite general craft supply that you might already have on hand, but if not they aren’t too hard to find.

Love locks are something you can see on bridges all over the world, but just in time for Valentine’s Day, there were some special love locks in Covent Garden in support of the British Heart Foundation. It was just as interesting to look at all the other locks as to leave your own. And so pretty through the lens.

Because I was cheeky and running behind, I’ve already shared the guest project for this sketch. It’s a Valentine card by Julie Campbell, and in addition to making a card from the sketch, she shares a clever trick for using rub-ons with stitches to amaze your friends with your hand-sewing skills! Perfect.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

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