Layout Share and Sketch Support Giveaway

 Today I have a layout to share along with a giveaway for one of the newest Sketch Support books...

be sure to read all the way to the end and enter to win!

“Sporting Heavy Metal”

 2 Page Sketch #17 by Allison Davis

Variation #1:

What I fell in love with on this sketch was the sewn on star accents. I had just taken photos of my son when he got his braces on this week, and the stitched row of stars reminded me of braces, so I went with that theme instead of the stars. I created my own “brackets” with the larger square brads, then I glued a small green square of cardstock to the top of the silver square (to mimic his green rubber bands he chose), and glued the smaller square brads to the top to complete the bracket. For the smaller brads, I just cut off the prongs on the back with my wire cutters first, then tapped the square brad head flat with my hammer. The finished brackets were then glued down to strips of paper and I added a silver wire underneath to complete the look of my custom braces. Hot glue was the best adhesive to use for these since it was quick and holds great. Other than trading the stars for brackets, the only other variation to this part of the sketch was that I added the paper strips and kept the row straight instead of adding them in a curve.

Here's a quick photo tutorial of how I created the brackets for this page:

I started with the small square brads and I used my wire cutters to snip the tabs off the back of the brads.

Then I flattened each small square brad with my craft hammer.

I took the larger square eyelets and set them with my Crop-a-dile tool.

Then I used some matte accents (liquid glue) to attach a small square of green cardstock to the top of each larger square. This will give my brackets the look of having the rubber band around them once I am finished.

To finish off each bracket, I glued four small square brads on top of the green cardstock. I used a hot glue gun for this step. The brackets were glued down on top of some craft wire on my layout.

 Variation #2:

I used 7- 4x6 photos instead of the 6 photos detailed in the sketch. The only photo I cropped down was the close-up photo of my son’s braces and I only trimmed about ¾” off the left side.

Variation #3:

Because I added larger photos and a second row on the second page, I didn’t have as much room for the star shape, so I substituted the journaling notebook page in place of the larger star shape.

Variation #4:

For my title, I stamped the word “heavy” on some coordinating cardstock and colored in the letters with a red marker. Then I spelled out the words “sporting” and “metal” with various metal alphabets.

Supplies - Patterned Paper: Scrap Within Reach ‘The District 406’; Cardstock: Bazzill; Alphabets: Autumn Leaves Stamps ‘Snap Frame’, Making Memories, K& Company; Adhesive: Hot Glue Gun and Glue Dots; Brads: Making Memories, WeR Memory Keepers; Inkpad: Marvy Uchida (Black); Stickers: 7 Gypsies ‘Mini Labels’; Journaling Block: Making Memories; Pens: Zig Writer ‘Black’, Close To My Heart Marker ‘Cranberry’; Other: Fibre Craft ‘Silver Wire’, Bind it All ‘Wire Cutters’, WeR Memory Keepers  'Crop-a-Dile Tool'; Making Memories ‘Craft Hammer’; Sketch: Allison Davis (2 pg sketch #17).

Now on to the giveaway! :) The sketch came from one of the newest books just released by Scrapbook Generations, called Sketches for Scrapbooking, Volume 8. This book is filled with 30 different sketches all in two-page layouts. You can use one side of the sketch to create a single page layout, or use the sketch as drawn to create a double page layout.

For more ideas on how to use sketches creatively, be sure to check out the Sketch Support website.

To be entered in the drawing to win a copy of this newly released sketch book, please be sure to leave a comment on this blog.  Contest will close on Friday, July 15, 2011 at midnight CST. The winner will be randomly chosen from all comments posted before the deadline, and winner must be able to email their shipping address to me.

Good luck!! :)