Do you ever find yourself in a creative rut? How do you get yourself out of it? Troll for ideas on Pinterest? Go for a walk? Clean and organize your supplies? Start in a different way than you would normally?
As a creative type, ruts can be so draining! You feel uninspired and it’s hard to want to go into your craft space to make new content.
I have been feeling in a bit of a rut lately. That all my layouts look the same. There are roughly a million different ways to break out of these types of slumps and I’m sure I’ve tried most of them! Today I want to share a layout that utilizes the idea of breaking your funk by doing something differently than you would normally. In my case, a more simple, streamlined layout than my typical pattern and layer-heavy ones.
I was inspired by the layout Gina Jean created in this video (the link will take you to the post on the Gossamer Blue blog where you can view the video). I have searched for the layout and could only find it on Instagram – view it here.
Mine is quite a departure from hers but I did use the same two sheets of Webster’s Pages papers from their Strawberry Fields collection – the vellum with all the bokeh images on it and the one with all the square images. I cut out only the ones with pink on them from the vellum and then ones from the other sheet that had pink in them and that supported my party day story.
To maximize the impact of my grid design I printed my photos smaller than I normally would – at 3×4″. Two of the vellum pieces are that size too so it was easy to place them in my grid. The other one is a 4×6″ and rather than cut it in half (an option I entertained briefly) I decided to just keep it intact and layer my top photo over it. This layout is not an example of how to create a perfect grid, rather how to use a grid as a basis and then make it your own from there.
When it came time to add my embellishments I kept them pretty simple too. Each square image got one resin flower and then something vaguely circular. Here it was 3 of the small hexagon die cuts from the Heidi Swapp embellishment pack grouped closely together.
This one got another vellum piece – a yellow circle from the Heidi Swapp pack. Vellum on top of vellum doesn’t work very well on its own which is why I actually layered one of the larger hexagons underneath the pink bokeh vellum. That was all it needed to help you be able to read the words on the yellow piece!
For this square I knew my title and journaling would be above it so I kept it clean. The blue tag would be quite bossy if I hadn’t added two other spots of blue around the layout for balance.
Clearly I added the ink splatters after I wrote my journaling! Oops! The journaling is still legible though so I’m not all that worried about it.
A couple words on my choice to use small tile letters for my title. The other alphas in my August kit were large glittery silver ones which just didn’t fit with this layout. The smaller ones were a better choice colour wise as well as size wise. This layout feels quite delicate and feminine to me. A large title would have overtaken it.
The last square (or the first one, depending on how you look at it – it is at the top left of the layout after all) received the most additions. A circle die cut with a bit of the blue, a vellum floral circle, the resin flower and then – because I felt I needed to bump up the blue to balance out the blue tag near the title – another small hexagon with blue on it.
What do you think? Did I manage to break out of my rut? I love this layout and will definitely revisit the idea of a more minimal look for my layouts in the future. It’s a nice change! Now, off to add layers and layers of paper onto my next project!!
Pop on over to my Facebook page and tell me how you break free of creative ruts. I’m always looking for new ideas!!
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Total success! Good for you for breaking out of that scraprut. Some new goodies to inspire you never hurt :~D
Thanks Leslie. Felt good to do something different!