Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

We love the versatility of layered scrapbooking templates! Here at the Sweet Shoppe, we are blessed to have multiple talented designers who create sets of layered templates you can use to create gorgeous, professionally-designed layouts.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying one template and creating one layout from it… but these days, we’re all trying to get maximum value from our purchases. And one of the things we love about layered templates are all the different ways you can use them. In fact, today I’ve got five layouts to share with you that are all based on the same template. You won’t believe what you can do with just one template!

We started with this template by Cindy Schneider, from her Half Pack 413: Photo Focus 132:

It’s got three photo spaces, one of which is a very large portrait-oriented block designed for a focal point pic. There’s a mat with space for a paragraph or so of journaling, four small element clusters, and that’s all atop a stunning backdrop of layered paper strips.

We gave this one template to five of our Sugar Babes. Just wait till you see what they created!

Carrie created a layout that’s a straightforward approach to using the template as-is. She clipped papers to the various strips and blocks, replaced the shapes of flowers and leaves with floral elements from the kit, and inserted her journaling and title. It’s lovely!

Sherly took the same template and shrunk it, creating a wide margin of about 2″ of whitespace all around her layout. Then she added photos, clipped papers, replaced shapes with elements from the kit, and added ribbon curls and sequins that spilled outside the bounds of the template and onto the background paper. With expertly-applied drop shadows, it creates a gorgeous effect!

Judie took an art journaling approach to the template. Remember, just because the space says “photo” doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to a photograph! She used patterned papers, word art, and sketches to fill her photo spaces. Instead of using the provided space for journaling, she used ephemera from the kit to create a fun, textured set of layers that evokes the feel of a collection of souvenirs. And Judie opted to only use two of the element clusters, simply deleting the layers for the other two. I love this artsy styled layout – and it’s still based on that same template!

Speaking of element clusters, I decided these photos from my niece’s wedding needed some over-the-top embellishment. I started with Cindy’s template, clipped a mix of patterned and solid papers, and replaced the scalloped trim on the focal-point photo with lace to evoke a bridal “feel”. I kept two of the blocks for photos, but used the round space for a pre-made journaling card with word art. And then I went wild with my clusters. I replaced the four element clusters in the template with more complex, detailed element clusters from Two Sides of Life by Alchemy Wild Studios. (Learn more about how I mix-and-match cluster templates with my layouts in this blog post here.) The end result definitely says “bridal” and “over-the-top”!

You’ve seen four different stylistic variations of this template: straightforward, more whitespace, art journaling, and lots of layered clusters. Now let’s look at a geometric variation courtesy of Sugar Babe Amie.

A great way of making your templates work for multiple layouts that don’t all look the same is to spin it, flip it, or reverse it. Amie rotated the template 90 degrees and then flipped it vertically. This gave her a landscape space for her focal point photo (rather than the portrait-oriented space in the original template) and placed it at the bottom of her layout. If you’re looking to create a layout with a specific photo, don’t rule out a template just because the photo block is in the wrong orientation. Just give it a spin like Amie did!

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So, there you have it: one template, five layouts. We hope this will inspire you to new interpretations of the layered templates you’ll find here in the Sweet Shoppe, whether it’s stylistic or geometric!