Stick It Down Online Crop!

Hello, and welcome to my blog! The purpose of this post is to give you some inspiration for my challenge at the online crop we are currently running on Facebook. If you follow the Stick It Down blog, you might already have come across my layouts, as I’m on the double page design team. For this event, however, I have chosen some single sketches to work with.

Oldie But Goodie Challenge

I decided to feature this challenge as I love working with sketches, especially when I lose my scrappy mojo; I have my firm faves to go to in hours of need.

I have chosen five single page sketches from the SID Pinterest board and I have paired each of them with a different theme. Hopefully this way you may find plenty of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing... you can use any of the old single page SID sketches from the Pinterest board, and you don’t have to follow any of the themes... they are there to give you ideas, not to restrict you. All I’m asking is that you use one of the SID sketches for this challenge.

So here’s some I made earlier:

His &Hers

This is a method I use as it suits how I document our memories and store my layouts. If you watch my process video on YouTube, I elaborate a bit more about how and why it works for me.

The main thing is, I sometimes create ‘matching’ layouts of the same event. I used inverted commas, because the degree of similarities and differences vary each and every time. Here I have created two layouts, based on the same sketch, but consciously tried to make them look different.

Firsts and Lasts

For this page I used the first SID sketch I have ever used for a layout. The story is about my son's first prom, at the end of primary school.

This is my original layout using this sketch:

And this is the one I made for the crop:

I tried to have a different take on the sketch, even though those fading repeating patterns do look like wet medium to me...

You can probably tell from the photos, I used a basic watercolour set to achieve the repeating pattern effect. It took a few attempts to get it right. In the end I wet the watercolour disks generously and put the 12"x12" cardstock on top of it, face down. I applied pressure with the palm of my hand and smoothed the cardstock onto the watercolours. I carefully lifted the cardstock off and let it dry...

Confessions of a graphomaniac

This sketch is right down my alley, as I am a self-confessed graphomaniac. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is mine. I scrapbook for memory keeping. This is who I am.

As much as I admire people who are able to create light, breezy layouts with lots of white space and artistically arranged embellishment, a layout for me is not complete, unless the story is told in words as well as in pictures.

Work That Pretty Paper

As well as a journaler, I am also a lover of pretty patterned paper. Yes, I am quite old-school. And yes, my pages do get rather busy. But like I said, that is who I am.

Lotsa' Photos

Using several photos on a layout is something I've learnt to embrace while recording our family holidays. Sometimes you have lots of photos to tell a story, or you want to include the photos to remind you of the finer details.

For this layout i have used a single page sketch to create a double layout. The sketch is repeated on both pages; for the page on the left I have rotated the sketch 90 degrees clockwise; for the one on the right the sketch is rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

There is also some variation in the shape and size of the photos and the placement of the title and the journaling. And I also added some embellishment clusters.

So you see, sketches are there to inspire you. To give you a starting point; an initial idea, which is then yours to do whatever you'd like with it. Sometimes your layout ends up looking very much like the sketch. That's good. And sometimes it comes alive with your own ideas and creativity. That's even better.