Sometimes, Enough is Enough!

I am pretty sure you've seen me say several times how much I love sketches. It's true! I love them! Especially when I have limited time to scrapbook but am dying for a fix ("Hello, my name is Krissy and I am a scrapbooking junkie!") because I have been too busy with "real life" to create a layout in over a week!

So, I was really excited to see the new sketch posted at Sketchabilities!

It has wonderful detail and really cute elements so I couldn't wait to play with it!

For my layout, I used:

Fancy Pants Papers, Happy Together Collection;
Bazzill Basics Floss (but any embroidery floss will work);
Bazzill Basics Stitching Template;
Small and Medium-Sized Self-Adhesive Pearls;
Markers and Distress Ink (to outline my papers);
Chipboard Letters; and a
Pen (for journaling).

You will notice that the sketch has the smaller photos located under the main picture instead of to the side like I have. It also includes cute little embellishments and swirls on the bottom and top left side of the layout. I tried to follow it; I really did! But once I spent the time to do my handstitching, I knew I didn't want to cover even a millimeter of it up with pictures. I also had "dead space" on the left side of my main photo so I decided that would be a good spot to place the smaller pictures. I then chose some pretty flowers that matched my layout and tried to place them along with small paper strips as shown in the sketch. They just didn't look right. I tried different flowers - paper flowers, fabric flowers, small flowers, large flowers - nothing looked right to me. I moved on to embellishments in lieu of flowers, but still nothing worked for me. I thought about adding a little more stiching and put several templates in place so I could visualize how that would look...nope. Finally, I noticed two packages of adhesive pearls that I had purchased earlier in the day and decided to add a simple pearl border around my layout. THAT worked.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love embellishments. Trinkets, flowers, metal charms, anything made by my Silhouette - I love it all. But sometimes, they just don't work; they don't belong. And when that happens, I have to go with my gut and not try to "force" all those cute extras onto my layout.

I am certain I will use this sketch again and follow it more closely because I love the way it looks. But if, for some reason, I don't - it will still be okay - because the end result is MY creation. And if I am happy with my creation, that is all that matters!

I encourage you to create something that makes YOU happy this weekend! For more ideas and more wonderful takes on this sketch, please visit Sketchabilities!