He Goes by Kaitlin Sheaffer
Ormolu supplies used: Go Dots n Spots, Excellence of Love Flapper, Line & Letter Scallop Tags in kraft, white flecked cardstock
Welcome to our very first Tip & Technique Tuesday!
I have a few little tips and techniques to share that I used while creating this layout.
This layout came about while I was in the car (husband driving) on a mini trip this weekend. I managed to sketch out the basics of how I wanted the layout to form, the journaling and nailed down what type of photo I would be looking for when creating the layout. All in all- it took me less than thirty minutes to make the layout when I got home. Perfect! I always keep a pen and paper on hand with me while I am out and I even tend to carry it around with me at home.
My favorite notebook as of recently is this wire bound notebook by Whitelines. It has a light grey background and white grid lines so it works great when I want to sketch out layouts or product design ideas. Looking at their website I see they have a new organizational notebook which I think will be the next one I pick up. Love these notebooks- I also see they have hardbound versions and different sizes...definitely will be picking more of these up.
To make the layout I started a new document in InDesign (but this could also be done in Photoshop or even Microsoft Word). I knew I wanted an opening beside the photo for journaling and I also wanted to use a circle tag in place of the letter 'O'. In my document I drew a circle that was the same size of the tag I wanted to use and used that to judge the size of the title. Then I changed the coloring of the 'O' to white so that i would not print out or effect the spacing of the other letters.
I also knew I where I wanted the photo so I drew a 4x6 rectangle to see how it would look on the page. I quickly realized I would not be able to use the remaining space how I wanted so I resized the rectangle to a 4x4 square to see how that would look.
Once I saw the 4x4 photo space would leave enough room for journaling and allow me to place a 2x4 piece of patterned paper I started typing up my journaling.
I also added a yellow rectangle at the top to see how the Line & Letter 'He' tag would fit.
Since it all looked like it would fit just great I went ahead and deleted everything but the journaling and title (making sure I deleted the placeholder for the 'o' which I would use a circle tag in place of).
After adhering everything to the layout as planned I decided I needed a bit of texture. I headed to my sewing machine to stitch over the Line & Letter Negative Scallop Tag. Instead of squeezing in the stitch above the word 'He' I decided to stitch over the word to give a bit more interest.
Then I decided to add the date in the bottom corner of the photo. I cut a piece of a flapper from the Excellence of Love Flappers that complemented Jude's shirt and stitched it on leaving a bit of an overhang on the photo, which I later used my fingernail to curl the edge a bit.
Whenever I do stitching I like to use a liquid glue to seal it. I use this little glue pen and just dab the ends before I cut. I love this glue pen and use it on little things all the time! I also use some acid free tape on the back of the layout to tape down extra thread and to 'seal' the stitch. This way the thread doesn't creep into the hole and come undone or get messed up when I slip the page into a protector.
Another thing I payed attention to while creating the layout were the visual lines. I used the pointy end of the Line & Letter scallop tag to draw a line down to the journaling. Originally I had planned to make the journaling directly below the 'letter o' (aka tag) but when I lined it up that way it lacked interest and threw off the sizing of the photo. Shifting it just a bit and using the scallop tag created more impact and allowed me to make the photo square so I went that route.
I also chose to use hollow lettering in place of solid lettering for the title since the tag was going to 'fill' the letter 'o'.
All in all this is one of my favorite layouts I have done lately. It seems to me my favorite ideas come to me when I don't necessarily have time to sit down and scrapbook- but rather I plan it while I am going about day to day tasks and create it when I have that time. My time seems less wasted and I have time to worry about the fun parts of creating a layout like what types of embellishments I will use :)
- Kaitlin