Scrap Over My Shoulder: Monica Lebsack

Creative Team Member Monica Lebsack shared her creative process with us as she put together a layout using January’s Scrap Girls Club!

Where do you find inspiration for your layouts?

I belong to several scrapbooking groups on Facebook and follow several scrapbooking boards on Pintrest, along with the Scrap Girls Gallery and the inspirations that come with each product.

What is the first thing you do when beginning a layout?

After I choose a photo, or set of photos, I focus on a frame, cluster or embellishment I’m drawn to from a collection that has a color palette that matches the photos well.

Would you say that you have a ’system’ or do your layouts seem to fall into place as you go? 

I tend to experiment with different things until I find what I like. Eventually, things fall into place, but sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to get moving in the right direction.

Is there a product or tool/technique that you use on most layouts?

I’m a templates girl. The layout may not look like the original template when I’m done, and I might pull various pieces from several templates, but there’s almost always one under there somewhere.

What is the one piece of advice you can give our readers?

Post your layouts somewhere that you can get feedback, preferably the Scrap Girls Gallery…just saying.  Having people point out what is good about your layout is just the confidence boost a person needs to keep their “mojo.” It’s also a great way to learn what works and what doesn’t.

Monica’s layout step by step:

This layout was made for the 01-03-2015 Weekend Challenge. We were asked to sift through our photos from 2014 and scrap our 5 favorite memories of the year.

In this particular case, I knew I had the perfect template in my stash, so I started with that and my photos. From there, I chose the embellishments that I wanted to use.

After that came a lot of experimenting.  I knew that I wanted the cluster with the title and I wanted the Stitches and Scraps embellishment on the right side under the photos, but did I want the journalling to stay where it was? What colors should the background papers be? After a bit of playing around, I decided on a dark blue background with a white mat to match the frames on the photos and to leave the journalling where it was.

From there, I added in my journalling and the subtitles. In the Club, Melissa provided the perfect alpha for the dots in the subtitle, so I put those in as well.

Next, I started trying to balance things out.  I had all of those green numbers, but that was really the only bright green on the layout. So, keeping in mind triangles and groups of three, I added two more areas with green (the numbers along the pictures and the number 5 in the title).

And there you have it. My thought process, and a little bit of the experimentation, that went into making a layout. You can find lots more inspiration in the Scrap Girls Gallery and, if you have questions about a particular layout, feel free to ask.  There’s always someone willing to help you figure out how something was done.

(Click on the image below to be taken to the product page)

Article written by Monica Lebsack