Yours, mine and the truth, right? Well, for today, it’s Shar’s, Brande’s and Cheryl’s. We chose one sketch from the January/February 2013 issue of Creating Keepsakes to work on, and tried to illustrate how different our processes are.

All Smiles layout by Maggie Holmes for Creating Keepsakes

Don’t miss parts 1 and 2 of this series.

Inside the Scrap Area of Shar’s Brain

Approach

Review of the layout: The first thing on this LO I really liked was the arrows going across, what a great feature! So instantly before anything else I am on the hunt for fun pics I can work that feature area from, so I picked Luigi’s tires. Take those arrows and turn em into tires! SO FUN! Then, I looked through the layout to see the number of pics and, voila, my Luigi’s Tires pictures are perfect, all though different (one 5×7 and two very cropped 4×6)! I can make this work.

Gathering

Collecting the artwork tools: I look at my pics closely and see lots of brown, rich red and some tan, ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAV colour blends. It’s either brighter then bright or browny brown for this girl. Now, I’m looking at the layers on this LO. I can get some fun patterns layered up and throw in a slight solid for balance. Let’s go to the stock pile … I take a bunch of papers out and do the “POP” test. Yeah, thats right, the “POP” test: when I lay these pics on my paper does it POP the colour? Does the pattern flatten or enhance the pictures and the details? Does it fit the theme properly? Does it make the people in my pics look washed out or POP’d out? And I choose from there.

Supplies so far

Awesome Boy by Recollections! Wicked paper pack! Rich browns, red and a great orange, perfect for that POP! Then along my searches I grabbed some embellishments that were laying around, Tim Holtz Film Strip, Maya Road Gears, MM Washer words… I  may use ‘em I may not but they are out because I like ’em and they just might do the trick. Embellishments are usually the last for me UNLESS I specifically picked up something to go with a certain layout/pic theme, etc. Otherwise, it’s the fun part after my LO is placed.

Building the LO

So looking at the multi “awesome” patterns I have, I look at the layout and decide what and where;  which one looks best against the pictures, what balances it out as the background and so on and so forth, until I have my basic LO mimicking the layered look in the sketch! Then i go into “tweak” stage, moving things around a bit, tilting and straightening, then tilting and straightening some more, a 15 degree to the right here and a 40 degree move to the left, etc. until i am happy with placement!

Adding some Techniques

So now I have it kinda where I want it (I find pieces don’t always go back down during the glueing process the same way they were after the tweaking stage). I add in some paper techniques. Two thoughts happen for me here: 1) I need to distress because the paper is screaming, “Distress me!” and 2) this is part of a theme album and most of my Carsland pages have distressing on them. So when in Carsland! Then I chalk edges for definition and when satisfied this is where I glue down!!

Relish the Embellish

So I ended up using alot of chipboard from Maya Road and two arrows from the Bazzill collection, so fun! I chalked them with Jumbo Java VersaMagic and some Stampin’ Up! Black to make them look a little used and greasy! That’s the best part about the chipboard, the limit is your imagination and it takes colour so well! It’s one of my most used tools in my scrapbook kit! Once I have the main embellishments ready and placed, then I add little things here and there to complete the LO! And along came some Little Yellow Bicycle canvas pennants, which worked really well once chalked.

Journal, who me?!

Oui! Not very often i attempt to include journaling, it’s usually the last thought but I had a great place for it on this page so I slipped in a little journal square from the paper pack and it seemed to do the trick. I love this LO, very happy!