Hello! We made it to Wednesday--halfway to the weekend! Glad you're back for more. Many scrapbookers find sketches helpful in creating layouts. Sketches take out the guesswork in the design process, and can save time. They can also be easily adapted to work in various situations, i.e. single vs. double page layouts, varying numbers of photos, etc.
Sketches can also be very useful for cardmaking for the same reasons. They give you a good starting point, and they can also be adapted to different shapes and sizes of cards. When making cards you don’t have to use a sketch specifically made for cards. You can use scrapbook page sketches as well. Take a look at some examples below.
Here is a layout I created and the sketch to match:
Here is a valentine’s day card I made based pretty literally on the sketch:
You can see the sketch very easily in the above card even though the card is a rectangle and the sketch is a square. Now take a look at a set of fall place cards I made based on the same sketch, but rotated 90 degrees to the right.
The basic elements of the sketch are still present. The journaling card with the name takes the place of the photo, the twine-laced eyelets take the place of the grid of embellishments, and the tree accent takes the place of the journaling strips.
The card below is based on just the right side of the original sketch--the grid of text and embellishments. To accommodate the size of this card (and the size of my square punch) I left out the bottom row of the grid on the sketch so there are only three rows instead of four.
Other options for this sketch might include flipping it horizontally so that the grid is on the left side, or cutting out the grid and just using the left half of the sketch. Going back to the original sketch, rather than a grid you could create a collage of embellishments and text along the right side of the card.
Using sketches when making cards provides a great spring board for your own creativity. Sketches are also wonderfully versatile. You can apply any sketch to any size or shape of card. Just identify the basic elements and carry them over from the sketch to your new canvas. You can also choose any element of a sketch and just use that in your card or project. The possibilities are numerous.
If you're interested in using sketches to create cards, below are some online card sketch resources:
Split Coast Stampers Sketch Challenges + Forum
Remember, if you create a card inspired by the above sketch (or anything else you see this week), please share it in the WCS flickr gallery. I can't wait to see your work!
Don't forget tomorrow is give.away.day. Come back and see what we've got in store for one of you wonderful readers.
