Sketch Week, Part 1

A new Sketch Week is upon us! Five new layouts, two fantastic Guest Designers, and a new sponsor:

 I don't know about you, but I'm ready to jump right in and get started.

Do you know what the most exciting thing about January is? Well, other than the big ball dropping excitement of 2011? The newest edition of Sketches for Scrapbooking, Volume 7, will be available! The sketch this week is a sneak peek into our newest sketch book and one of my favorites. I think I end up calling every sketch my favorite.

The sketch, from Sketches for Scrapbooking, Volume 7, that is the starting point for all the layouts this week.

This sketch is available to download and print by clicking on the printable sketches link.

Layout #1 - The Christmas Card Mess

Supply list - Cardstock: Bazzill, everything else is from the Jillibean Soup Christmas Chestnut Soup collection.

One thing I use often in the design of my patterned papers is strips. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is I like so much about using them. It could be that it's an easy way to include lots of different patterns, or maybe it's because it is an easy design solution, or it could be that maybe, just maybe, I have a sub-conscience fear of running out of paper. Either way, I love them. With the sketch this week I've tried to show different ways to enhance those strips and incorporate some different ideas in their place.

Variation #1 - When it came to picking out my pictures for this layout I realized I didn't have a lot of horizontal photos to choose from. Even though the right page is all horizontal photos this wasn't a problem at all. I decided to have one of my favorite vertical photos printed in an 8 x 10, crop it to 3 x 10, and use it for half that block of photos. You could always use an 8 x 10 cropped to a 6 x 10 for that whole block but on my layout I wanted to get some pictures of Jackson in that area too. To complete the block of photos I used two 3 x 5 photos.

When there is a block of photos, like the ones on the right page, there are so many combinations of picture sizes you can use. It's just like a puzzle and figuring out what size goes where to complete your photo block. I always start with the biggest photo first and then figure out what else I need to fill in the rest.

Variation #2 - On the left page I used three 2 x 2 1/2 photos instead of one 2 x 2 1/2 and one 4 1/2 x 2 1/2. Again, my lack of horizontal photos made it difficult to crop a 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 photo plus I wanted to squeeze in an extra in that spot.

Variation #3 - Speaking of extras, I added another photo over the empty space on the horizontal photo on the left page.

Variation #4 - One of my favorite kinds of patterned papers are the ones that have designs that are easy to cut out and use individually. It's such an easy embellishment. The Christmas collection from Jillibean Soup that I used had several like that including one with different shapes and sizes of wrapped presents. I cut out a variety of the presents and used them in place of the bottom strip on the sketch.

I didn't worry about them all being placed perfectly even and layered some of them with foam adhesive.

This was a really easy way to add a fun, eye-catching touch on the layout instead of the simple strip on the sketch.

Variation #5 - Because there was so much going on with the presents on the bottom I kept my embellishments super simple. I didn't even add the circle behind the title since it was right on top of the presents.

Variation #6 - I added an extra strip of green cardstock above the striped strip. After I add the presents along the bottom and the title there was a lot of green along the bottom but not so much near the top. I wanted to kind of balance out the colors so I thought a small, simple strip of green would do just that.

Variation #7 - I used journaling strips instead of the journaling block suggested on the sketch. I tend to use journaling strips more than any other format for journaling mostly because I like it that way.

The journaling format is always an easy one to change up. It's probably the one area on the sketch that I pay the least amount of attention to.

That was a lot of variations!

The December sponsor, Jillibean Soup, has put together a great giveaway for this week.

This is definitely one of my favorite Christmas collections this year! How can you not love the presents, the snowmen, and the gloves! You should take a peek at the Jillibean Soup blog today. I spied some pretty awesome holiday ideas with this collection.

Plus I'll be giveaway a copy of Sketches for Scrapbooking, Volume 7. Whoever wins will be one of the first to get it!

Here's how the giveaways work during Sketch Week: I'll be posting everyday, Monday - Friday. All week you'll have a chance to leave a comment and next Monday I'll post the winners. You can leave more than one comment through the week to be eligible (five days = five chances to win!) but not on the same day.

Happy Monday!