from layout to card

Inspiration for a card design can come from pretty much anywhere, and one that I’ve played around with for today’s card is using scrapbook layouts as a starting point.  Layouts are obviously made on a much larger scale.  But when looked at with the right point of view you can pinpoint many inspiring ideas, which are perfect for jumpstarting a card.  Take for example Tina Aszmus' simple but striking page…

What appealed to me the most was the amount of white space and the flow of the design through the placement of the photo and additional elements.  I knew I could scale this entire layout down and make it work on the smaller canvas of a card.  Other times, it’s also possible to take just a portion of a layout and us it as the basis of a card.

By taking cues from Tina’s amazing layout, here’s what I was able to come up with…

I loved how the photo, embellishments and sentiment were all grouped horizontally at an angle.  To mimic this look, I trimmed a cardstock strip and placed it onto a card base in the same direction.  I then chose to place my sentiment in almost the exact same position as in the layout.

To give my card a bit of movement, I took note of the grouped embellishments in Tina’s design and carefully arranged mine.  A strip of chevron washi tape, a row of tiny stamped triangles and a few well-placed mistable arrows help to lead your eye directly to the sentiment.

When using a scrapbook layout as a jumping off point for designing a card, make sure to take cues from the colors used, basic shape placement, embellishment placement, shrinking the entire design or a portion of the design, basically… capturing the essence of the layout on a smaller scale.  I hope I’ve encouraged all of you to take a closer look at your favorite layouts and see the potential they holds for a card or two.

(supplies: cardstock - PTI rustic white; ink - Hero Arts Shadow Ink soft pool; stamps & mistable arrows - Central High card kit; washi tape & alpha letter stickers - Style Guide add-on)