Hi OA Fans! It's Amy here today with our weekly Sketch Challenge! I'm a lover of all things whimsical, cute, bright, happy and fun when it comes to my scrapping and card making. But sometimes I find myself stuck in an "L-shaped" rut with my layout designs every once in a while. Don't get me wrong, the L-shape is a fantastic triangular design - I just find that I gravitate back to that shape whenever I start scrapping too organically. So today, I thought for my sketch I'd incoroporate a large element that I don't often create in my scrapping - a large circle.
I love designs that incorporate a large circular shape. Circles instantly create movement and direction for your eye to follow in any design. A large circle like this one in my sketch, can be interpreted in many different ways, too. It can be utilized literally as I have done in my layout:
or more subtley. I decided to go literal with my circle this time, because a day or so after I created this sketch I was fortunate to get a lovely box of goodies from the upcoming release of Rocket Age! I simply could not ignore the draw I had to the 8x8" version of "Return Voyage" in my box. Perhaps you can say it was "Cosmic" or "It was written in the stars" that I use that paper with my previously created sketch! Ha, ha! Whichever the case may be, that's the route I took.
However, I can easily imagine the more subtle uses of this circle : perhaps masking one with mists, or using a large chipboard "O", maybe creating waves or simply a path of gems. The possibilities are really endless! I re-emphasized the circle both with my photo and with my "moon" of patterned paper behind my photo. I even tried to harness my inner Kinsey Wilson with some handstitching around the perimeter of the moon. But let's just say, I'll leave that handiwork to the master herself - I ended up machine stitching over the top of my handstitching. With that addition I ultimately really liked the result - so who knows maybe that is a new technique for me!? 
As for the rest of my layout, it should be noted that I have never been one to follow a sketch to the "T". There's a rebellious part of my artistic side that says I want to take that sketch and put my own spin on it - so that's what I did - even with my OWN sketch! LOL! 
I moved the journaling down, since I wanted the adorable rocket image in my pattered paper to remain visible, and instead of using photos on the right side of my layout, I used the circle as my visual centerpiece and simply divided up the original photo placements with ribbon. Lastly, I moved my two "stars" from the bottom of the layout over to the right side of my layout bringing more attention to the title of my layout, which was only moved slightly from the sketch.
How's about we take a look at another version on the sketch? Wilna created a beautiful layout of her daughter. She used 5 & Dime as well as Modern Homemaker for her page and I just love the result. 
I love how she really emphasized the circle in the sketch by enlarging it to encompass nearly the entire layout. I also love how she stitched the perimeter of her circular patterned paper, really giving movement and texture to her circle. 
A couple things that Wilna did that I think were really brilliant - she used the main large interior rectangle as her photo and used the two smaller rectangles on the right as her journaling placement, with those adorable tags. It really is beautiful how all the writing and her title are all on the same side of the page - really makes her adorable daughter the focal point of the layout, which it absolutely should.
Lastly, I wanted to point out an adorable take by one of our Flickr Gallery participants, Amy Kilgore, and her version of Marcy's sketch from this post. Amy used Campfire to create this adorable layout of her brother and sister fishing in the late 1960's. How FUN is this vintage style photo with Campfire? It's PERFECT and I LOVE it!!
Thank you so much, Amy, for taking the time to play along with Marcy's sketch! We love what you did with it!!
So what do you say? Want to give this week's sketch a go? I'd love to see your takes!! Make sure you post them to our OA Flicker Gallery Here, and who knows, you could be featured on the October Afternoon blog, just like Amy Kilgore!! ;)