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

Not all of my layouts are as bare as the ones I’m showing you here today, but I often do love a good amount of white space on my layouts. Simplicity might be one of my trademarks when it comes to scrapbooking. As much as I am addicted to patterned papers and all of those beautiful embellishments out there, I love it even more when my picture is the center of attention on my work. Even though some picture are more catchy than others, scrapbooking for me is all about the photos, and the stories they tell. And so, especially for those few of my favorite photos, I carefully attend to making them shine. The use of white space is one of my ways to do that.

All you need is a picture and some carefully placed pieces of patterned papers and/or embellishments. I tend to keep everything rather close to the picture. Small clusters of embellishments then guide your eyes across the focal point.

White space of course doesn’t have to be white per se. You can add some ink splatters or glitter to the background. For this layout of my little man, I applied a layer of gesso to the background. This gives my cardstock some extra protection against the moisture of the watercolor behind the picture. But it also adds some texture to the background which gives it a more interest than just a plane white background, if you don’t want to go too clean and simple.

I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to try and embrace a bit of simplicity every now and then by leaving some white space on your pages.

Els lives with her husband and two children in a small town in Belgium. She started papercrafting a few years back, shortly after becoming a mom for the first time. She first dabbled into cardmaking, but shortly after made her way into scrapbooking as well, searching for a way to document all those family memories. The past two years she served in the design team for BasicGrey, Scrapperin and Scrap365 magazine amongst others. Els gives workshops a few times a year, and has also been teaching an online class. You can pay her a visit at her blog, or follow her on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook .

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There have been a few requests in both directions lately – some for simpler pages, some for more embellished examples. It’s a good challenge and I like trying a little bit from each direction to keep things feeling fresh. This may be the most minimal page I’ve done in quite a while, and it only uses one sheet of patterned paper. It might be necessary for someone to take my pulse and check that I’m okay, really.

Mixing landscape and portrait photos on the same page is one of my biggest design challenges, as I just prefer all the same direction really! But there are a few ways to include both in a design I still like, and balancing two smaller prints with one larger print falls in that category. I used one 4×6 portrait and two 2×3 landscapes, but there is room to adjust that to suit your pictures.

The supplies for this page come from the July Best of Both Worlds kit, then there is a bit of grey and cream cardstock and silver mist.

I will admit my temptation would have been to work the opposite way around with these papers: the patterned paper and the grey cardstock flipped so the background was the solid. But since the last few pages I’ve done on solid cardstock backgrounds have seemed finished to me until I trimmed them a bit and matted them with a contrasting pattern, it seemed worth a shot to try it the other way around, especially since this sketch called for the mist on the smaller block of paper. Which way would you be tempted to try?

For a second look at this sketch, Asia takes a turn with square photos in this design. Asia’s work is so beautiful, and I certainly wish I had an ounce of this creative fluidity at her age!

I really like creating with sketches. Shimelle’s sketch is great, but it isn’t my usual type of design – I seldom make layouts with multiple photos. But I like it! I interpreted this sketch to my own style by taking it to a smaller scale. I chose the photo first, then I dug through my papers and chose these in a sky blue colour. I also added some grey papers. On the background paper, I used a mask and blue Glimmer Mist. I thought that working with three photographs will be a little difficult, but creation process was very fast and fun! At the end I splashed the page with black ink and added sequins to finish.. Voilà!

Asia lives in Poland. She is 17 and attends high school. In the scrap world she uses her nickname Po prostu Asia. She started scrapbooking in 2011 and now is addicted to scrapbooking! Asia creates everything, but she totally loves layouts. She is a DT member of CraftFun and Scrapki. You can find Asia at her blog or on Facebook .

Now it’s your turn! I’d love to see how you interpret this sketch.

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I’ve been tempted to photograph my stack of Project Life cards, but I’m a little afraid to show you right now. I’m not quite sure how I’ve managed to convince myself that I need quite so many when I work far, far more in the 12×12 format than pages with 3×4 pockets. But the truth is I still like the designs and enjoy the challenge to incorporate 3×4 cards in a variety of styles onto the 12×12 canvas. Plus by sharing core kits with a group of friends, I have far more designs on the cards in the same amount of space… it’s something.

This sketch didn’t originate with the 3×4 thought in mind, but when I looked at my desk, it seemed just right. Originally I had imagined a page that was all quite simple but one rectangle of that grid was layered and embellished with plenty of detail. That’s where I would spend my time. It turned out that by picking a 3×4 card that I really liked, I didn’t want to layer anything on top and it cut my scrapping time back to just minutes!

The 3×4 card is from Simple Stories, from a cut-apart sheet in the June kit, and the papers, stamps, and letter stickers are from July.

I’m really drawn to tone-on-tone titles lately, like using the cream Thickers on the cream notebook paper. I think with the dimension of Thickers it’s still quite easy to read, but I’m guessing some of you may prefer more contrast? Just curious.

For a second interpretation of today’s sketch, please welcome Monika to the blog!

When I first saw this sketch I was so happy that I could use more than one photo. I took these photos in May when we were walking by a river, and there were a lot of dandelions. My younger son was blowing dozens of them and asked me to take photos. I wanted to use all three photos taken at every step of blowing, I used also numbers ’1-2-3’ to highlight the steps. I very much love the paper from Studio Calico’s Sundrifter collection, which is full of feathers, so I cut those out and used them to highlight the blowing effect. I love layering, so I used a couple of papers in pastel colours and layered them, as well as some clouds cut out from patterned paper. I think that this sketch worked out very well for this story and you can almost feel the wind.

Monika Głód loves to scrap and take photos. Scrapbooking since 2006, she is a member of American Crafts design team for 2012-2013 and also designs for 4heures37. Her work has been published in Scrapbook Trends magazine and Create Idea Books. Monika also runs her own blog and has galleries at Two peas and Studio Calico .

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With Noell’s design leading me to work more on the vertical and then that idea staying with me through the next few projects, it made me laugh to come to sketch 28 and see that it was such a vertical design. I planned out the sketches way back in December, so apparently I just knew way back then that I was going to be on a very vertical kick come July!

This sketch is drawn for three landscape photos, probably printed at 2×3 inches, but I opted for two square photos at 4×4 and that worked fine too. It’s a great design for scrapping quickly and with partial sheets of patterned paper, since it just takes a few simple blocks to layer the background.

These supplies are from the June and July Best of Both Worlds picks, plus some dark brown Mister Huey mist and two sizes of heart punch.

Today I’m delighted to welcome someone new to shimelle.com, with a second interpretation from Stephanie Berger, a very talented scrapbooker from Germany.

When I first saw the sketch, I instantly knew what pictures I wanted to use. I love the pictures of my husband, totally sunken into pottering a teacup. I took these photos via Instagram and as always I printed them 9 × 9 cm (about 3.5” square). After selecting the supplies – for a wonder, this was a quick step – I placed the pictures as shown in the sketch. However, it didn’t feel comfortable to me, so I decided to rotate the sketch. And behold, it was perfect for me. I enlarged the smaller papers, so the background paper does not look so dominant. Usually I do not use a lot of embellishments and so I added only a few. Some punched hearts, wooden stars, some splashes of turquoise colour for contrast and it was finished.

Together with her husband Stephanie lives in Southern Germany near Stuttgart. There both spend their time together exploring the country, playing some sports, and taking a whole lot of pictures. Stephanie is working as an assistant in real estate management – doing some craft is the balance to her job. Scrapbooking is the thing that puts all the outdoor adventures, taking pictures, and working with paper together. Stephanie has been on several German design teams, such as Scrapping the Music Germany and Scrapbook-Werkstatt . She also designed three of her own paper series for Scrapbook-Werkstatt. She teaches photography and scrapbooking workshops. You can find her on her blog , Instagram and Pinterest .

Now it’s your turn! Create a project from this sketch using any supplies you like, and share it with us here.

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Returning to the July kit, I said my masterplan was to make embellishments with punches, so it’s time to start doing that! Starting with two photos and three die-cut tags, a horizontal strip across the middle creates a shelf that holds up the photos (like books on a shelf) and lets the tags hang below, a bit like a very orderly length of bunting. Printed branding strips on papers and the narrow strips that come from cutting a paper down to 11.75” square both work really well for the shelf, so I tend to leave quite a few by my trimmer and there almost always ends up being something there that will work. Of course, sometimes I just wind up with a giant pile of narrow paper strips on the floor, if I’m not careful, but I suppose that risk just comes with the territory.

There’s one thing here that can really help you spot your style: see the bit with the date at the bottom left corner? Look at the page as it is, and imagine that little space empty so it’s just the red patterned paper. Which looks better to your mind? Some will find the date and just that little bit of embellishment balances the title on the right photo; others will find this is too much or the date feels like it’s floating since everything else is so grounded to that central green strip. All three answers are perfectly valid in terms of general design concepts, where there are often multiple ways to interpret the same guidelines – and those interpretations are what we see as personal styles! Being able to look at a design and identify in your mind if you would make a change is a huge step toward developing your own ideal style.

But let’s start with something simpler than that for this challenge. I challenge you to take a few punches (or dies, if you prefer) and use them to create a stacked embellishment like the one in the centre of this page. Take a few different shapes and layer them from largest to smallest. It helps to have one element that isn’t a circle if all the other layers are circular in shape, so I used a label, but I’ve also brought in butterflies, snowflakes, and leaves for the same effect on other pages. Stack up whatever punched pieces you like, and when you’re finished with your project, upload it to your blog or a scrapbook page gallery and share a link with us!

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Since working more in video and more in series format over the past two years, it’s amazed me how the totals add up. Sure, the Glitter Girl playlist is pretty long, but that’s a series that averages a half hour and comes out every single week. Sketch to Scrapbook Page is a little more here and there, but even so, there are forty-four videos and to watch all of them would take more than ten hours! I don’t suggest doing that all at once, if only because I fear for the part of your brain that has to register the same pitch of my voice and the same well-worn phrases for quite so long!

But this little challenge comes in two parts: something for you and something for me. The playlist above lets you scroll through to get to all forty-four different videos in the series (you can also find that in a list format here. They are listed in date order, with the newest first and oldest last.

The part of the challenge that’s for you: choose any sketch from that list and use it as the inspiration for your own page. Share what you make below!

The part of the challenge that’s for me: in the comments on this post, vote for which sketch you’d like me to try again with the August Best of Both Worlds kit. You vote today, I’ll film it tomorrow, and it will be the final post at the end of the weekend! So take your pick, and I’ll cross my fingers you vote for one I really love!

More challenges, videos, and new layouts coming up all day Sunday! Happy scrapping.

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Looks like the next video is taking a million years to upload, so I’m rearranging and renumbering the challenges to make sure you’re not just twiddling your thumbs on this fine Saturday evening. New videos tomorrow then, assuming that ‘million years’ is the hyperbole I meant it to be!

The July kit isn’t just different in terms of being very papery: it’s also the kit that has border strips and 6×12 journaling boxes as the cut-apart sheets rather than the usual 3×4 and 4×6. Once I started cutting all those papers, I realised there was so much potential to work in either the vertical or the horizontal on these pages. Obviously there is always that potential! But certain designs emphasise one or the other, and T and L shapes actually manage to emphasise both. It’s something that can be carried through the embellishment for some simple little details.

The tall journaling box starts that emphasis on the vertical. Stacking the photos so they are lined up and straight repeats that. Placing the title on top of that and keeping it the same maximum width continues the vertical design. Even that little file tab at the bottom right ends up reading as vertical when it’s turned on its side. In fact the other two embellishment areas are also stacked on the vertical: a die-cut geotag and a butterfly stacked vertically on ‘top’ of a shelf created by the horizontal word sticker; stamped phrases and another butterfly perched atop the letters of the title. Just keep building up in that vertical line and those small embellishments will balance well with the large elements of the page.

Your challenge is to create a project that emphasises the vertical. You can choose any design that works for you! When you’re finished, upload your project to your blog or a scrapbooking gallery, and share a link here!

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There is not much left of that June kit at this point, so it’s time to crack on with July! Jury’s kit is very paper-based, and my plan includes lots of embellishment to be made from stamps and punched paper. Out of curiosity, how many of your punches do you use frequently? I have four or so that I must use twenty times more often than the rest. We’ll come back to that thought later this weekend.

Of all the Sketch to Scrapbook Page videos, this one is the most popular on YouTube. This is still a design I love, especially for highlight style journaling, so it seemed high time to start with this design again.

This page is made with a mix of supplies from the June and July kits, plus a sheet of kraft cardstock since it’s for the backpacking album. The combination of journaling cards and tags in pockets works well for putting the more detailed part of the story out of view. Not something that is useful on every page, but in this case it was just right.

You can take this challenge in either of two directions: if you like this design, go ahead and give it a whirl with your own photos. Or if you prefer, select one of your favourite pages from your own albums and return to that design you love. Upload your project to your blog or a scrapbooking gallery and share a link here. Happy scrapping!

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