The Story of Scrapping Someone Else's Style

There's about a million things I loved about Escape 2 Create. I loved meeting the people, the amazing food, the free time, the new products, the constant inspiration, the scrap-til-you-drop attitude of everyone there! But one of the things I was most looking forward to was taking the classes from the other 3 amazing teachers; Kim Archer, Celeste Vermeend and Gina Rogers. So today I thought I'd share the layouts I made during their classes.

On Day One it was myself and Kim who taught our classes. Kim didn't teach a layout (.... but she did blow my scrapping mind! So I'm saving that for another post). The layout you see here is what I put together following Celeste's instructions for her happy bright summery page.

It was layer upon layer of Studio Calico goodness, who not only provided most of her kit supplies, but a truck-load of donated stash as well. Thank you Studio Calico for your immense generosity! It meant I had plenty to choose from when putting together this page. Most of it (at least the papers) is from the new Lemon Lush collection.

But there's lots of tags and buttons and clothespins and bows and sequins too! So many embellishments that I don't normally think of, but which created layer upon layer of colour and texture... which is definitely what I'm about when I scrap. It was insights like this which made me want to do the classes in the first place!

Overall, I really just enjoyed the fun bright frivolity of this page. Perfect for my summer time photo of the girls enjoying their new outdoor pool.

Then there was Gina's class, who taught us her layout (very similar to this one here). And above is my attempt at it. Gina has quite a unique style where she manages to pull together seemingly disparate scraps of paper and embellishments and form it together in such a way as to create a piece of art.

I am not that bold or clever! If I attempt those things it just ends up looking like a hot mess! So I took her papers and her design but added my own spin on it. I reverted back to my own basics, and that was to stick with a clear colour scheme and keep straight lines.

Oh, and I also needed to keep enough space for the necessary journaling ;-)

So here's what I learned: it's really awesome to take a class and try a layout in a different style. You'll probably discover more about your own style in the process as you figure out what bits you like and which bits don't quite fit you as well. It's really fun to scraplift someone's design but add your own spin on it. Thanks so much Celeste and Gina... your classes absolutely ROCKED!!