Alone by litabells
This page is a journal entry for Lita, inspired by a rough day she was having. As a mother, wife, and friend, it can be hard sometimes to find time alone. She knew that she wanted her page to have a dark feel about it, to somewhat suit the mood of the journaling. She chose the background paper first, going with a deep purple, grungy feel. She then layered paint brushes, some vintage ephemera, and a messy alpha to create the look she wanted.
Lita doesn’t really follow a particular design principle. She is an artist at heart, and when she is painting or working in her art journal, she tends to just go with the flow, creating whatever makes her happy and this same process applies to her digital art pages. When Lita is creating a traditional scrapbook page, she is mostly a cluster lover with lots of white space. However, if she is working on an art journal page, then it’s a free for all! She will pile on a ton of stuff, even though it may not be clear exactly what she has used. She layers and blends until her artsy heart is happy. What Lita loves about this layout, and digi art journaling in particular, is that it lets her combine her everyday scrap kits with more grungy, artsy goodies. She loves looking at her older kits in a whole new light!
Key to My Heart by Armygrl
Lisa had just started a one year unaccompanied tour to the Republic of Korea. A couple of days prior to making Key to My Heart, her husband sent her six Tango video messages highlighting doggie bath day. Seeing the videos made her homesick so she wanted to do some art journaling to help her feel better. The photos in Key to My Heart are from her last walk at home with her Puckas (that’s the nickname Lisa’s husband came up with for their two dogs). When Lisa saw the bottle caps in Altered Emporium’s Vintage Bottle Caps she knew she wanted to insert photos of her family. Initially she thought she would make a charm bracelet; but when she saw the key chain in Altered Emporium’s Finishing Touch: Falderals, the title Key to My Heart popped into her head. The layout was easy to create from there as she added elements to build the key chain. The key chain, to Lisa, represents home. She missed home, missed her Puckas, and was feeling heartbroken. Making the page was therapeutic for her!
Lisa wanted it to look as if she took a picture of her key chain on a table. She used Pink Lotty’s Wooden Textures, which had a richness that appealed and the “lighting” helped to emphasize the tag with the journaling. The last elements she added were the various leaves. The key chain alone with the wood background was too plain…and although the lighting was right, her eyes still did not know where to go along the page. Adding the leaves created flow. Every time her eyes wandered to the top and bottom of the page, the leaves brought her eyes back to the key chain. The single Maple leaf acts as an anchor and completes the visual triangle.
Lisa uses the rule of thirds constantly. One of the first things she does when she starts a new layout is to create guides in Photoshop set at 2.667” and 5.664” horizontal and vertical (Lisa’s layouts are almost always 8”x8”). This grid helps to divide the page into thirds. Lisa also feels that leading lines are effective whether these lines are created with visual triangles, arrows strategically placed, or the overall flow of the page. The last thing she does on almost all layouts is to run it through RadLab.
Lisa scraps in multiple styles. She is best at fantasy style or realistic looking layouts. She has difficulty with minimalist layouts but adores all styles and tries to make them all. A jack of all trades but a master of none.
Imperfect by EmmasMommy
Laura was inspired to create her layout by the kit itself. There are just certain kits that inspire her and this one was one of them. Laura starts a layout with the papers. She gets the basic papers down as a background or as a stack and then selects the photos. She typically picks photos to match the kit. Then the basic design is laid out, journaling is added, and finally all the little things that make a layout pop are placed. Laura is all about balance, triangles, and color. She needs a layout to balance and 95% of her layouts have some sense of triangles on it in some aspect. She also likes to take a color and just add pops of something else to it. Laura’s style has been recently evolving. She used to be a very traditional, papery style of digi- scrapper, but recently, she became obsessed with paint, grungy overlays, and stamps.
Stuck in Between by Sheana
Sheana was inspired by the Sweet Shoppe’s Summer Games Diving challenge and of course, Meghan’s kit. She started the page with a plan white background. One of the rules for the challenge was that all of the photos had to be tucked behind the papers. So she positioned the photo on the page and played around with the blue polka dotted paper until it was positioned the way she liked. Then she started adding the elements. Sheana believes that color is her most important design principle. She wanted her layout to be girly but without the typical pinks or purples. So she choose blue and variations of it. Sheana tends to be a cluster scrapper. She likes a lot of layers and clusters of elements.
The DST Gallery is packed with amazing layouts and inspiration. Join us each month for a selection of pages from our amazing members along with a behind-the-scenes look at how each page came together.
Thank you for sharing this great read about these amazingly talented ladies.