Step by Step: Copying a Past Layout

 This year, I'd like to start doing some different things on my blog including more frequent "step by step" posts about crafting. I always enjoy learning how other folks approach projects, and I'm hoping this topic may be interesting to my paper crafting friends. Feedback is welcome!

Today's post is about copying a past layout to create a new page. As I teach classes, I often hear scrapbookers say they are hesitant to use a design more than once for fear the pages will look alike, but I do it all the time! It saves time and, with a few tweaks here and there, the new page always looks different than the first. Here's the process I used on a recent "copied" page.

  
#1 - What's the story? Choose photos to illustrate it.
For me, scrapbooking is really about the story. The photo is simply the illustration. I have a very hard time scrapbooking a photo if I don't know the story behind it. In this case, I had great photo AND I knew the story, so I was good to go!

This iPhone photo didn't need much editing. As it is, I don't have any fancy photo editing tools -- just Picasa, which has plenty of features for me.  Sure, I could have changed it to sepia or black and white, but I decided just to darken the edges with the "vignette" feature and keep the color, as I liked the brown/blue combination:

#2 - Find a page you like and re-use the design.
For this page, I decided to borrow a design I used for a 2012 page (another occasion when I had only one photo). I have no problem repeating designs, as long as they don't end up next to each other in an album. By varying the photo size, colors, and other design elements, no one will know the difference!

For the new layout, I decided to use cardstock for the shaped paper and patterned paper for the background, opposite what I used in the original layout. Since I didn't have any shaped cardstock, I simply traced a sheet, cut it out, and inked it with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. The inking masked all the imperfections in my cutting! :)

Following the original page design, I sliced off the left edge of the shaped cardstock, leaving a piece I can use for another project. I cut and notched strips from the double-sided paper, then inked and adhered them across the page. I've had the patterned paper for quite awhile, just waiting for the right photo! I'm pleased to say that I used almost two full sheets on this page, which is a LOT for me!

#3 - Place photo and elements.
Since I had a better photo to work with this time, I printed it at 5x7 to fill the space. Next, I cut and inked a mat and adhered the photo to the left side of the the page. I planned where all the other elements would go based on the original design but flipped the position of the title and the journaling. Because the main word in my title was longer than the one in the original design, I knew it would carry more visual weight so belonged at a lower position on the page.

#4 - Create title and journaling.
I like creating titles with a mix of Thickers or die cut letters for the main word and printed text or small stickers for the rest. I looked through my stash of Thickers to find letters for "flying" which matched my color scheme. The set I found was a bit too light, so I inked the letters with Walnut Stain. 
 

 

 With "flying" in place, I cut a scrap of paper to represent the rest of the title text as well as the journaling. This makes it easy to determine both size and position without wasting my "good" cardstock or paper.

Once I figured out the dimensions, I created text boxes of the same size in Microsoft Word. From there, I played around with the fonts, wrote the journaling, and printed it out on scrap paper to be sure I liked it. Text boxes are the best tool ever for creating titles and journaling!

Once I landed on a final color of cardstock for the journaling and title text, I printed and inked the pieces and adhered them in place.

#5 - Add embellishments. Sparingly. :)
My prefered style is very simple, so I use embellishments pretty sparingly. As luck would have it, I found a perfect set of October Afternoon travel chipboard stickers in my stash. A little ink gave the clouds  a vintage look. I tied some twine around the handle of the "destination" stamp, then added some mini-brads to the lower corner. Click on the photo to read this fun little story. :)

So there you have it -- a new page copied from an older page. Why not repeat a design you love? You might even like it better the second (or third!) time around!
jp