We are so excited to kick off our winter issue reveal on Friday with four days of challenges, inspiration from our design team, and two special guests, fun and PRIZES! Let’s start off slowly on this Monday by using a sketch to warm up our creativity, and welcome design team member Meghann Andrew, who is not only inspiring us to use sketches when we are stuck, but also look at our stash in a different way! 

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Hey there, SCT friends! It’s Meghann Andrew with you today, and I am so excited to be starting out Winter Issue Challenge Week here on the SCT blog! I chose one fantastic 12 x 12-inch PageMaps sketch from the fall 2021 issue to work with, creating a holiday-themed layout without a single Christmas-themed product in sight! First, let’s look at the sketch:

I chose to shrink the sketch into an 8-½ x 11-inch layout to document a magical holiday moment! Take a look:

 

Supplies | Patterned paper: Close to My Heart; Tags, acetate, vellum and cardstock die cuts, stickers, enamel dots, stamps: Elle’s Studio; Chipboard alphabet, journaling spot: Crate Paper; Punches: EK Success; Ink: Memento; Adhesive: Therm O Web; Other: washi tape, bakers twine 

Every year we kick off our holiday season at Disneyland, our favourite theme park, and one of the highlights of the trip is meeting up with Mickey dressed in his finest holiday apparel! I captured this sweet moment between him and my daughter on Main Street and had to document it. The problem? I didn’t have any holiday theme park products to use! My solution? Get creative and use the stash I had on hand that matched the colours in my photo but was neutral enough to be used for any page! 

I started off this layout with a neutral, black and white patterned background from a Close to My Heart Mix-In pack. I just love the versatile patterns they include in these packs! In the sketch, I loved the layered tag with die cut patterned paper to the left of the photo, so I recreated that using a black and white plaid tag and green journaling spot on my layout that matched Mickey’s sweater perfectly. I placed my title, created using the Title Builder Vol. 5 The Merriest stamp and vellum die cuts, just below. I love being able to combine just the right words to create a jolly title on my page with this collection! 

I added the Elle’s Studio “on Main Street” die cut to finish off the title, then embellished on both corners of the title and journaling area using items from my stash: acetate and cardstock die cut hearts, die cut tabs, punched Mickey heads, a chipboard “E” representing my daughter’s name, enamel dots, die cuts and small sparkle stamps. None of these are holiday-themed products, but they fit this merry photo perfectly!

I also loved the wide band of patterned paper at the top of the page in the sketch and chose another Close to My Heart Mix-In pattern to add a large amount of red to the page. To add a few more elements than the sketch and balance the heavy embellishment area to the left of my journaling spot, I adhered green, black and white, and red tags, creating another home for embellishment at the top of my page: a phrase sticker, punched Mickey head, enamel dots, and more stamped sparkles.

To tie that embellishment grouping into my photo, and use a cute die cut camera that I had on hand, I added one more small grouping at the top corner of my photo to finish off this page. I love it so much, and although it doesn’t have a Christmas product in sight, it sure feels holly jolly to me! I hope you’ll take up this challenge and not only create with the sketch we are sharing today, but also try to use products you have on hand that may not fit the theme you’re documenting! Happy creating this week, everyone!

Find more of Meghann’s work here: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube 

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Now it’s your turn to create with the sketch that Meghann chose, and use it as-is, or change it to suit your project! Doing so, and submitting based on the guidelines below will give you a chance to win this:

We have an exciting new kit and class combination, curated by designer Nathalie DeSousa, which shares some of her favourite products, trends, design tips, and more: Splendid Days! With the purchase of our new Splendid Days kit, you’ll enjoy not one, but TWO private process videos from Nathalie along with full colour instructions to create several gorgeous layouts, both single and double-page layouts with lots of supplies remaining to create more!

Challenge Guidelines:

  1. Create any project using the sketch image above;
  2. Submit an image of your creation by Wednesday, December 15th at 11:59 pm ET to us (must be under 2mb!) at ideas@scrapbookandcards.com.
  3. Put “Winter Issue Sketch Challenge” in your reference line;

Winners will be announced here on the blog on Saturday, December 18th! We can’t wait to see your projects in our inbox! Come back tomorrow to get in the winter mood with a beautiful mood board challenge and inspiration from our first special guest!!