Making a Sketch Fit Your Style

Here's the latest sketch for the Scrapping Stamper Design Team.

At first glance, it isn't a good fit for my style.  I do like it, but between the torn, offset background to the six different patterned papers to the six flower accents, it has a lot more going on than my usual pages.  Plus, there's no designated place for journaling.  But I've learned there are ways to make any sketch work for you, no matter what your style.

Here's what I did to make this sketch work for me:

• Rotated the sketch 90 degrees to the right
• Used clean white cardstock as a base, then matted that with black.
• Chose three different patterned papers to make strips.
• Changed the area designated for a subtitle into a journaling block by removing one paper strip.
• Skipped the embellishments.

 

I am really happy with my finished layout.  It's clean, simple, has a lot of journaling, and the focus is on the photo... exactly my style.  As I worked with this sketch, I realized how much I actually love it.  A sketch is all about finding inspiration and this one led me to a design I never would have come up with on my own.