September 16, 2015

Quick and Easy Layouts

I don't know about you, but I don't always have a few hours to set aside each day (or week!) for crafting. Today, we've got Jamie Waters here to assure us that we don't need that much time! In her 15-Minute Pages, she proved that she's a pro at throwing together gorgeous pages in just minutes, and now she's ready to share another tip with us!

Hi there! If you’ve taken my 15-Minute Pages class here at Big Picture Classes, you'll know that saving time and seeing quick results are two very important concepts for me. However, I’m not willing to sacrifice a page’s story or beauty for the sake of time! To show you can create pages that are both quick and cute, I wanted to share a layout I made using a Studio Calico kit.

In my class, I suggest creating a kit to work with from your existing stash of supplies. If you're anything like me, you've at least roughly organized your supplies – papers, stickers, embellishments, etc. – so pulling together a kit from things you already have can be a great stash buster! In this case, since I was only making one layout, I went ahead and pulled out what Studio Calico had already kitted for me for this month. I've combined most of the kit’s patterned papers to make a whimsical background with lots of layers.

I am a huge fan of mixing patterned papers – if I didn’t, how in the world would I ever make it through that gigantic stash of paper I've got?! I also used some alpha stamps that weren't included in the kit, but they were new to me so I had to find an excuse to play with them. I mixed them with the kit’s alpha stickers to create my title.

In an attempt to utilize more of the kit’s supplies, I used the little bubble stamp for journaling blocks. I often try to use several of my supplies on as many projects as I can. Years ago, I may have only grabbed one or two of those phrases from the tear sheet of kraft sayings to add to this layout, saving the rest for later so I wouldn’t run out. After several years of scrapbooking, I know now that there's no way I could possibly use up all of my supplies. With this in mind, I went ahead and used seven of the kraft strips on the bottom of my photos instead of just a couple. It feels incredible to bust my way through supplies!