Bethany's Creative Process



 

Time to get out my Birthday Page kit and get to work!

Usually there is a gap in between when I put together my kits and when I use them, so the first thing I do is spread it all out on my desk and take a good look at it!  Hello Gorgeous!  Excuse me for a minute while I pet those pretty stamps.  I'll be Right back. 

My time is very limited, so generally when I start a project, I begin by looking through magazine, sketchbooks and online for some inspiration.

**Here are some of my go-to sketch sites, in case you are interested...
Creative Scrappers
Got Sketch
Pagemaps
Sketches in Thyme

Today a sketch on October Afternoon caught my eye!  (Hint:  If you like a particular scrapbook company, chances are their layouts/cards/sketches on their blog will be right up your ally, too!  So check out your favorite company's blog to get some inspiration!)



October Afternoon

 



What do I like about this sketch?  I love the title at the top!  I generally don't do that, so it will be a nice change.  I like the clustering of circles, too!  It seems birthdayish to me.

Now to get started!  I have the perfect pictures from Isabel's birthday trip to the American Girl store this month.

Now to pick the perfect background paper from my kit.  I don't want it to be too busy.  Out of my 5 choices only 2 might work.  (Now, I could layer a solid color onto one of my more fun, patterns, but I don't think I want to go that route.  We will see.)



I think the yellow paper will be saved for something else.  The pattern is really great and subtle, but the journaling printed on the side is not what I am going for and I hate to cover it up just to use the yellow pattern.  So the grid paper (Yeah for nice straight lines!) it is!

Let's see how the photos look on the paper...

 



Hmmm...I think they are a bit long.  I would like to see more space on the sides, so I'll just trim those down.  I also think that matting the photos would help give them more definition.  They are looking a bit lost on that grid paper.  I like the purple in the American Girl Star, so I'll pull some purple cardstock for that.



Let's tackle those circles now.  The placement of the big one in the center could be a bit of a problem if it covers too much of my daughter in the photo.  Let me think about what I can do about that.

After staring at the photos for a minute, I decided to try some stars instead of circles.  I wanted the larger one to mean something (not just be patterned paper), so I printed out a photo onto cardstock and cut it with my Cricut in the shape of a star.  Then I pulled some patterned paper from my scraps pile to make the rest of the stars.  I made shadows for each one with white paper to give them some more space from the colors of the layout.

I really like the banners on the bottom.  Maybe that would be a good place to use the patterned paper from my kit.  Let's try it and see.

I think that is fun without being too much.  I love the paper with the journaling spots and strips in my kit, so let me think of where I can use some of that paper.

That Happy Birthday Strip is perfect, so I added it as my title at the top of the layout.  The journaling spot from the same paper made it easy to jot down the highlights of the day, too.

I decided to add to the Happy Birthday title with some little letter stickers.  I also, added some twine and a handmade bow for some detail.

Here is my finished layout!  I really like how the stars frame Isabel on the layout.  This was pretty fast to put together and the sketch made it really easy.

Get ready for tomorrow!  Susanne has a great kit to share with us!