Stay cozy and relax | Storyteller Layout | Anna Komenda
Hello crafty people. It’s Anna here with another layout made with gorgeous “Storyteller” collection. This month we are playing with sketches and this is one of my first go – to things when my mojo is low. It wasn’t the case this time but I had tons of fun picking the right sketch for the job. I already had my photos printed so I knew I needed a sketch with two vertical photos in it and a spot for a bigger title. The task wasn’t easy and I went through many sketches to find the perfect one for me. Here it is:
It’s one of the Page Maps sketches that was used by Scrapbooks & Cards Today magazine for their Spring 2021 challenge. You may be surprised I chose 8*11 design as I always make my layouts 12*12. But who said you can’t alter your sketch? I not only changed the size of the background but I also flipped the sketch vertically making sort of mirror design with it.
Here is my finished project:
I kept my page very similar to the sketch, which is not always obvious in my case as I like to play with the design and keep my creative freedom. However, this time everything was going so smoothly, all the papers I chose were matching, all the embellishments were jumping on their places that I just kept going the way sketch led me. I started with the most perfect background paper called “Cross it off”. It’s very bright, all the middle part of the design is empty but it’s more than just a plain white cardstock. For the layers under the photo I used A5 Paper Stack so I didn’t have to cut whole 12*12 papers (and some of the patterns I chose are available only in the stack).
After glueing down my photos of the coziest beagle ever (yep, that’s my new blanket…) I followed the sketch and added some flower clusters in three areas. I used the ones from ephemera pack so I didn’t need to group the florals one by one. The laziest scrapbooker ever, I know. But why not to use simple solutions when Zoe already took time to put those flowers and leaves together? I also made a simple tag out of the pattern papers and added a string in natural color to it (exactly like the sketch shows).
I knew what the title of this page will be from the very beginning so I couldn’t use foam phrases that are included in this line (it’s a pity as they are simply stunning). I reached for alpha dies instead (they were already on my desk to the level of lazyness is still rising!) and I cut the letter out of the coral paper from paper stack. Before putting the letters down I added pieces of foam tape for more dimension. The title is the biggest change I made in following the sketch as it’s a bit smaller and doesn’t peak out behind the first layer of paper.
I finished everything by adding few buttons from ephemera pack and cute, little puffy hearts from puffy stickers set. I didn’t add any splatters which is usually my signature “cherry on top” step but I liked this page just the way it turned out. I must tell you, I finished it in 40!!! minutes. It’s like a personal best I think :) Following the sketch was so easy and liberating that I could switch off part of my brain responsible for overthinking.
I highly recommend you reaching out for sketch from time to time to step out from the well known path, try something new or just make things faster and easier for yourself. Thank you so much for staying with me today and I hope I inspired you a bit with my layout. See you soon in two weeks!
XO Anna