How to Create with a Sketch yet Remain True to your Style by Helen Tilbury

We're wrapping up the week with one more day of beautiful Limited Edition kit inspiration and techniques. Today, My Creative Scrapbook design team member Helen Tilbury is walking you through her approach to interpreting sketches into pages.

Here's Helen:

Hi everyone!  Helen here today to show you how to work with sketches without compromising your true style.

Ever looked at a sketch & thought – “oh no! – That’s just not “me”?”  Don’t worry, it’s happened to us all.

Rather than give it a miss give it a go instead – only modify it to suit your own individual style.

Take a look at this sketch here, from My Creative Sketches (our July sketch) currently open for participation right now!

It’s a beautiful sketch (of course!!) but when I looked at it I thought “Hmmmmm…how should I approach this? 

Seeing as I don’t do a lot of paper layering using big squares of paper (it simply isn’t my style).”

So this what I did.  I decided to expand the area around my photo using a Prima mask with some embossing paste followed by gelatos instead of papers! 

Thus staying true to my artistic approach.

Gelatos are a fabulous new mixed media product from Faber-Castell & are like creamy lipsticks.

I applied mine with a sponge.

I love using packaging & often incorporate it into my layouts so I added some Prima packaging on top of my gelatos & masking, then tucked in some Webster’s Pages packets (cut even smaller) to form the base of my layout. 

Note how the shape I created mimics the sketch but with smaller dimensions.

Once I had toned down my gelato work with a sponge dipped in water I started layering up my embellishments, using Basic Grey printed chipboard from the July 2013 Limited Edition Kit.

I laid down a sticker to form the base of my title (which you can see I moved from the top to the bottom of the layout). 

Don’t be scared to change some aspects of the sketch to suit you.

(If you are participating in a sketch challenge you must be able to “see” that you started with the sketch but not every aspect of it needs to remain in exactly the same place or have exactly the same proportions).

Next I added my title work & some finer details such as the confetti dots (using full-stops from the alphabet set) & some cheesecloth (which always works well with beach-themed layouts).

Lastly I added some more embellishments (printed chipboard) & some floral vines (to mimic the main embellishment area on the sketch).

Lastly I added my journaling & called it done.

Can you see the sketch in my page? 

I think so! 

Yet I’m happy that I didn’t have to compromise my true style to achieve it.

I hope this has helped some of you out there today.

If you struggle to interpret sketches into pages you like hopefully this has helped you :)

Helen Tilbury

My Creative Scrapbook Design Team Member

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Here's our July Limited Edition kit:

and here are more of Helen's beautiful layouts using the kit:

Be sure to visit Helen's blog for even more inspiration!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer.  Click here for information about purchasing our kits.