One Template, Eight Ways – June 12th
Oh, layered scrapbooking templates, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
If you’ve ever stared at a blank canvas in your favorite scrapbooking software and thought, “where do I begin?” you know the frustration of scrapper’s block. There’s no quicker shortcut out of that feeling than when you pull out a layered digital scrapbooking template. Whether you use the template exactly as designed or, instead, use it as a starting point to add, move, remove, and alter elements on the page, templates are a fantastic tool for all digital scrapbookers.
In today’s blog post, we’re looking at the versatility you can find in a single layered template as eight of our SugarBabes start with the same template and end up with eight unique digital creations.
We all started with this template by The Nifty Pixel from her recently-released Across the Page | Page Drafts:
It’s got four square photo spaces arranged in a filmstrip across the top half of the page plus one small circular photo space. There’s room for a few lines of journaling and a lovely large element cluster to tie everything together. And that’s all anchored on a paper strip set atop a large background block.
We gave this template to eight of our SugarBabes, and they completely outdid themselves. Wait till you see the variety of layouts they created from the same layered template!
Esther used the template as a starting point for a layout with lots of whitespace … perfect for a page to evoke feelings of being at the beach with white sand stretching across the horizon! She removed the large background block and allowed her white canvas to stand alone. Simply beautiful!
Sherly used the same template and clipped a patterned paper into the big background mask. It gives the page a different feel from Esther’s, with lots of texture and those horizontal lines leading the eye across the page. What a great background for those fun birthday photographs of her pre-teen son!
I’m a fan of big photographs, especially when they’re of people I love. I started with the same template but rather than using a solid or patterned paper, I clipped a great big photograph in the background mask. I layered in a piece of wooden paper and played with blending modes to add some soft texture. And I took advantage of the extra space on the horizontal paper strip to add in lots of journaling.
Jill’s spin on this template is quite literal – as in a 90-degree spin counter-clockwise! She began by rotating the template, which allowed her to use the background block for a vertically-oriented photograph. As the title of her layout says, this is just “Awesome!”
Charlene’s approach to using this template involved merging the four photo masks on the horizontal photo strip into one long mask, perfect for a panoramic photo straight off her phone. Just because the template is designed for four photographs doesn’t mean you have to use it that way!
Amie had more photos to include on her layout than the template was designed for, so she took the photo strip and its backing paper layers and duplicated them, placing the second strip in the lower half of the layout. This allowed her to double the photos and cards on this layout, and it looks great!
Speaking of that photo strip and layers, there’s nothing that says you have to leave it anchored at the top of your page. Jaye opted to shift it down to right around the middle of her layout, giving her equal space at the top and bottom to showcase some fun patterned paper. Love it!
Can you believe Judie’s layout started with the same template? She took the focal-point photo strip and its backing layers and slid it down to the bottom half of the page. She added a layer directly on top of the background for a photograph with a sketch effect applied … then placing the same photograph – as shot, without the sketch effect – in the small photo circle. And rather than using the photo strip for more images, she replaced it with a rectangular element from the kit – the shelf of books – and isn’t the result simply gorgeous?!?
So there you have it: one template turned into eight uniquely fun layouts. The next time you’re staring at a blank canvas and don’t know where to begin, I hope this will inspire you to pull out one of the layered templates you’ll find here in the Sweet Shoppe and use it as a starting point. Whether you add, move, or remove elements, use the photo spaces as-is or merge them, or give the template a spin as you rotate it on your canvas, remember that a template is only ever a starting point … and where you end up is all up to you!
