A sketch for January
It’s time for another sketch here on the Hey Little Magpie blog. I’m really enjoying working with sketches, and am excited to be bringing them to you monthly. This month I’ve got the following page sketch for you, featuring 2 photos grounded by a banner and surrounded by clusters of embellishments.
Firstly I used the sketch true to form, and created this page about my little boy’s first day of school last year. I used lots of star icons, because stars are his favourite! Simple stories make some of my favourite background papers – perfect for layering up. This yellow toned wood grain is from the Simple Stories Summer Vibes Basics pack. I used Freckled Fawn star paperclips, a gorgeous stamped flair from Amy Tangerine’s Finders Keepers and my absolute new favourite die cut labels from Fancy Pants Happy Place. It amazes me how grown up he looks in his little school uniform, but I know in years to come he will look so tiny in these photos. I plan to do a chalkboard at the start of each school year, and I’m excited to see him and his ambitions grow and change. Or maybe he really will become a policeman, and how special will this be then?!
For my second page from the sketch I took a mirror image approach, and to show off that stunning diagonal stripe from Basic Grey’s South Pacific collection I made the inner boxes smaller. These photos were quick phone captures of the first time I put my daughter’s hair up in bunches – they looked simply adorable and I had to get them on a page! We’ll just gloss over the fact that she only kept them in for a few minutes before tugging the bands out and refusing to let me anywhere near her hair for the rest of the day! Gold is still very much on trend, and appears everywhere. I’m finding it sneaks onto almost all of my pages at the moment! I used several bits and pieces from Crate Paper Craft Market, Dear Lizzy Documentary and Crate Paper Journey. I’m trying to use up a few older bits of stash too (generally more than a year old) and challenging myself to use at least one thing on each page, so the blue paper with white squares here came from my scraps box. I don’t worry too much about colour matching, so long as the general tone of colour is similar, but you’d be surprised how many colour palettes blend old and new seamlessly.
Thirdly I used a rotated version of the sketch to make this page about the day I introduced my sons to each other. Another Simple Stories wood grain sheet gives just enough interest to the background, and papers from Seven Paper, Maggie Holmes Confetti and Amy Tangerine Rise & Shine are layered. My “us it up” items are a couple of die cuts from one of Dear Lizzy’s first collections, and I made the title using October Afternoon tile stickers and a wooden word from Heidi Swapp. I miss October Afternoon! I loved these stickers a lot, but they’re better used on a page than sat in a drawer so on they went. What stash are you hoarding? Get it on your next page! My vertical banner was cut from printed burlap which came from Crate Paper’s Craft Market collection. These pictures are so special, and it’s wonderful to get them onto a layout, surrounded by pretty things and little details. Isn’t scrapbooking great?!
There you have it. One sketch, three pages, three memories down on paper and into the albums.
Sarah and Lianne are busy in Anaheim choosing us all the latest and greatest from CHA right now so keep an eye on Facebook, Instagram and the blog for all the pics and news.