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Love it. Wait til you see my Shimelle attempt. I just can't do it.

ScrappinJen wrote:Love it. Wait til you see my Shimelle attempt. I just can't do it.

I bet you can. Let me know what I can do to help!

You're doing great with these layouts... with Shimelle's inspiration!!

Okay, Pam, here you go. I am finally slogging through Ready Set Scrapbook and this is lesson 2. I had to skip over 1 for some reason. It's okay. Just looks so busy and I don't have the types of embellishments Shimelle used. It's done. I'll move back to Lesson 1 and see what happens. Thanks for your critique.

What don't you like about it? I think you did a great job with it.
Oh! You wrote what you didn't like!
The background paper could be the culprit. While I love all the colors on that paper, I've never liked it with my pictures. There's so much contrast on the paper itself. I wonder if a layer of vellum would calm it down a bit? Another idea might be to use a solid white instead. You could punch out some of those circles and bounce them around the page. Is that helpful at all?
I'll look at that episode to see what sort of embellishments Shimelle used.
ETA - I just looked at Shimelle's example. I think you did a great job with the "L" shape and your stars are pretty perfect but maybe a bit small? Do you have a small star or heart punch? The area at the top left - try adding two more little stars or a larger star or heart (about the size of the heart on Shimelle's page) and one more little star. The bottom right could handle a bit larger star or heart amongst the little stars. (Die cut flowers would work as well.) In one of her classes, Shimelle said when you aren't quite satisfied, keep adding. I think she's usually right.

Let me know what you think. Remember there are no rules!

Pam, that's exactly what I told Nancy once everything was already adhered down. I wish I had used a piece of vellum. I will on the next one. Thanks for the comments.

ScrappinJen wrote:Pam, that's exactly what I told Nancy once everything was already adhered down. I wish I had used a piece of vellum. I will on the next one. Thanks for the comments.

Great minds and all that!

I like the layout Jen. But I can see where the high contrast of the bg paper could be an issue. One of the things that designers seem to grasp, but not always communicate well, is the difference between small and large pattern. There seems to be a right way and a wrong way to do large patterns and/or high contrast. And I don't have a full grasp of it. I think it's why I like Scrapbook Generation sketches so much. Generally they call for small pattern, but on occasion their sketches call for a large pattern, and I try to follow those instructions. Clearly they know something I don't, because when I try to use a large pattern where a small pattern is called for, I'm not ever happy with the result.

But all that said, I think that some of this designer sense is inherent, and isn't necessarily teachable. So when we see a layout that works, and we try to CASE it and fail and don't understand why, it has something to do with the pattern or contrast of the papers, and where it works and where it doesn't. I wish someone could figure all of that out and bottle it. I'd buy that in an instant.