An attempt at Sketching

I was reading Kelly Goree's blog post on scrapbook.com yesterday outlining the main things she uses for inspiration. She is hands down my favorite scrapper so I took in every little detail.  Last night when I got home from work I decided to try sketching.  I have never approached scrapbooking that way.  I'm the kind of person who picks a photo or two for a layout and I will sit, sometimes for way too long, shuffling photos and paper around trying to make it all come together.  I even have a big "inspiration book" of layouts I admire from many other artists that I refer to often for help.  But sketching worked out for me pretty well.  I was able to get my idea down and execute it pretty quickly.  I definitely changed a couple little things and added elements as I went but the sketching really helped the main layout idea.  Here's my end piece, one of my favorites yet.

The photo of my husband and I kissing on our wedding day is one of my favorites.  My best friend said it "makes her heart happy."

Using Crate Paper's Random collection definitely helped.  I love contrast but often find that my layouts are a little too "matchy matchy."  I tend to stick to collections and have a hard time mixing things up.  But this collection mixed it up for me. Some of the details:

Pearls and Ruffles seem so wedding like.  The ruffled ribbon reminds me of my dress.

Heart/Flourish die cut made using the amazing Silhouette SD machine.

I had these brads forever and never can find the right layout to use them, here it is!

Good old American Crafts Thickers always add awesomeness to a layout

Kelly's post also gave 2 sites with ready made sketches. Page Maps seems particularly helpful as it shows a sketch and an end layout.  I'm loving this sketching thing more and more because even if you use a page map made by another artist your layout will reflect your personal taste and your tweaks on their idea. More to come with sketching.