5 Creative Uses for Scrapbooking Sketches

On the rare occasion I had difficulty coming up with a great layout idea for a set of pictures, I used to spend some time looking through pictures of other people's layouts online. Lately, I have become absolutely absorbed with scrapbooking sketches instead.

A scrapbooking sketch is simply a drawing of a layout that shows where every element of the page goes. Scrapbook enthusiasts all over the world are now making these sketches and many of them are online for anyone to make use of...completely free!

So, once you find them what do you do with them?

Silly Fun for Kids

My kids love to mix and match scrapbooking sketches to come up with wacky creations of their own. One idea is to take two or three very different sketches and assign different colors and patterns of paper to each one. Now, mix and match different elements from each page to create one new design. Put it together using the previously assigned paper for the elements included from each sketch. The final product will be a very unique blend of colors, patterns, textures, and embellishments.

For these silly projects we use low quality pictures printed off the computer or double prints that will not be needed for serious projects. Consider making a silly album just for these creative projects!

Learn From Sketches

If you are just starting out, scrapbooking sketches are the best way to learn new techniques. These sketches allow you to take apart some of the more complicated and intricate designs and learn how to put them together yourself.

If you know someone who wants to learn scrapbooking, you can use sketching to show them how layouts are designed and put together.

Make Your Own Versions

Most people browse through scrapbooking sketches to get ideas for their own pages. They enjoy seeing everything clearly laid out for them so they can find something they like and create the layout with their own pictures. This is the same way many people use pictures of other people's layouts for ideas, but with a sketch you can clearly see where everything goes.

This is a great way to use scrapbooking sketches, but I encourage you to find a way to personalize every sketch you use. Disregard any mention of color that you may see on the sketch and pick colors that correspond with your photos instead. Use your own embellishments and stickers or add in a border for a sketch that doesn't have one.

Also, don't be bound to the number of photos used in a sketch. If they use three but you have six, change the sketch a bit to fit your own requirements.

Make Your Own Sketches

Don't throw this idea out automatically just because you think you lack the artistic gene. You are creating scrapbook pages by the way, which happens to be a very creative art! Sketches do not have to be perfect or professional looking to be extremely useful.

How many times have you gotten into a layout only to have an even better idea hit you? What about all those times you realized something was just not going to work as you planned, and the mistake wrecks the entire page? Sketching before you start to actually create new layouts prevents all of these things from happening!

If you start sketching out your ideas you can change your mind mid-project without wasting supplies. If something just isn't going to fit together you may see it in the sketch, rather than after an hour of putting together an actual layout.

You can also look at real layout photos online and then sketch the basic design to get your own creative ideas. This is kind of a twist that allows you to use someone else's design as inspiration for a fresh sketch of your own.

Oh, and if you get more ideas for layouts than you can possibly put together right away, sketch out those ideas and save them for later. You will never again lose a great idea because you didn't have time to implement it right away.

Create Smaller Projects

If you have experimented some with making your own cards and other smaller sized projects similar to scrapbooking, you know that it can be more challenging to make designs that fit into a smaller space. Card sketches are now available online to teach you the ropes and give you some inspiration.

There are entire websites dedicated to sharing scrapbooking sketches. Go online and see how sketching could transform the way you do your own pages!

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