two page sketch # 17: just another fun day at the zoo

It’s two page week again on the Sketch Support blog! This week Allison is featuring a sketch from her new book Sketches for Scrapbooks vol. 8. You can purchase a copy for yourself here, but you can snag the sketch for FREE here.

And here is my version:

supplies (all from my Green Tangerines June kit)  letter stickers: Lush by My Mind’s Eye, October Afternoon, & Echo Park;  chipboard buttons: Graphic 45; Word Stickers: Echo Park; Patterned Paper: Crate Paper; Journaling block & ribbon: unknown; Punch: EK Success; Decorative Brads: Stella Rose by My Mind’s Eye

My original plan was to stick with the sketch & do something for the Fourth of July. And then I went thru my photos & realized I hadn’t scrapped our zoo pictures from April!

The first change I made was to add more photos. The sketch calls for three 4x4 photos stacked on the right page. First of all, I had two photos that just didn’t work as squares. And second of all, I wanted to use a few more pictures. So I opened up a 6x12 block in Photoshop Elements and made a grid of eight 3x3 photos. Then I started playing around & came up with the above photo block.

*Tip: You should be able to see the white lines in between each photo. Instead of trying to line all of them up with a perfect margin & still make it fit, I simply selected each photo layer (before flattening) and went to “edit>stroke (outline) selection”. I outlined each photo with a 10px line that was centered.*

1) As you can see, I didn’t use stars! I had this cute journaling block in my GTKC kit that I was planning on mounting on something. But no matter what I put under it, I liked it by itself more. Plus the block itself kind of stands in for the large star.

2) I substituted these cute buttons for the star border. originally they were just place holder so I could see if I liked the swoosh of stars going over my photo on the right, and then I realized I really liked the buttons. And they have a few clock ones to go with the clock on the journaling block…yay!

After getting the buttons stitched on & my pages almost done, I decided they needed a little extra something. So snipped the legs off of a few brads & glued them down. I love the extra bit of color & bling.

3) Instead of a scalloped border next to striped paper, I used “torn paper” ( have no idea what to call this) punch and some ribbon from my kit. The scalloped edge didn’t fit the look I was going for, and with all the circles I thought the scallops would be too round.

And for those of you who’ve made it this far….

…it’s a giveaway of Sketch Support’s latest sketch book, volume 8.

You can leave me a sweet comment to be entered in a drawing for a free copy of "Sketches for Scrapbooking" volume 8.  I will draw a winner (late) Sunday, July 17th and post the winner. And for extra chances, head over to the rest of the Sketch Support Creative Team blogs...we're all giving a copy away this week!