about a month ago, the talented jen gallacher asked me if i'd be interested in guest designing for her august stretch your sketch class over on two peas in a bucket. i love working off sketches, so i jumped at the chance.
here is the sketch that jen provided for us this month. the great thing about her class, is that she doesn't just show you how to use the sketch "as-is". she encouraged us to make it our own. i decided to flip the sketch upside down for my layout, flip flop the title and the journaling piece, and then swap out the journaling piece and the photo. and here's what i ended up with:
i actually had no clue what i was going to do my layout about, until last weekend. one of alyssa's friends came over, to work on a school project. and i happen to hear them talking about books. turns out, her friend saw a list of books that alyssa has hanging in her room, and asked about it.
when she was in the 7th grade, they had to keep track of all their reading for the school year. listing books, authors, and number of pages they read. in the 10 months they were in school, alyssa read 57 books. and not just little books. big ones, like the twilight series. i had always commented, on how that would make a great layout. to list them all, so that we could look back on it. she's had the list hanging in her room for 2 years, and i finally did what i said i wanted to do.
i used a mix of crate paper and my mind's eye pattern papers, for this page. i cut my main title words, "fifty seven", from pattern paper, using my silhouette. and then i used two different kinds of bella blvd letter stickers, to complete my title.
i also cut the circle grid piece with the silhouette, from pattern paper. i had a background shape, that was 5 circles high and 5 circles side to side. since the sketch was only 4 circles wide, i just deleted a row of circles before i cut the piece out.
instead of actually journaling about this story, i decided to simply type up all the books off her list. these are in the order she read them, right off her list. and i think there might be one or two duplicates in there, since she occasionally loves a book so much, that she'll read it a second time. the row of books stamp is from a studio calico kit, from the beginning of the year.
then it was time to embellish my circles. this was the fun part. i knew that i just wanted to add random, fun embellishments to each circle. although, it could have been fun to add in some little photos of some of alyssa's favorite books. didn't think of that until i was typing this. lol! i just dug around in my stash, looking for things i could add, in coordinating colors. reds, aquas, greens, browns, and a bit of yellow. i have a mix of buttons, brads, flowers, chipboard pieces, 3D flower stickers, and even a plastic clock piece.
you can check out jen's layout, download an instructional PDF, watch her video, and see the other two guest designers HERE. thanks jen, and 2peas, for letting me play along this month!
Laura Vegas 
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