Fun Template Creations by Dolores

I've really enjoyed working with templates, trying out designs and then coming up with some ideas to share with you. I have three layouts, one using a template from this blog, then two others with some new templates you might like to try.

First I have taken one of Pam's templates, the Ellipse, and created a page that showcases one of my favorite pastimes, hiking. This activity my husband and I have loved for years and years; I imagine that we will continue to hike as long as we are able so I have lot of pictures of the Rocky Mountains. I selected some photos from a memorable trip in which my niece joined us and created a page featuring 4 of the many photos we took that day. The ellipse shape was great for highlighting a good sized photo of my husband and it was a nice fit for the 3 smaller photos. I embellished the page with a pinecone and pine braches that were cut with a digital die cutting machine. Here is my "Enjoying the Great Outdoors" layout.




When we take vacations, I'm always the one taking lots of pictures. When I'm home and putting a page together, I often want multiple pictures on a single page. That's one of the reason I love the many templates available here. As I considered the possibilities for a template I thought an octagon might be a very picture friendly shape. I divided the octagon into nine sections as seen below.




I felt there were a number of possibilities with this template considering that depending on how I placed it on a page, I could work with a square and rectangles, or the look of diamond shapes if I rotated the octagon just a bit. After experimenting with pictures, I also thought about how I could change the look of the finished layout just by combining some of the sections within the octagon so that I would need 5 pictures rather than 9. I combined a rectangle and triangle on each side of the octagon which gave me 4 pictures on the outer edge of the template and retained the single square in the center. I liked my last experiment the best, so here is a shaded version of the template to illustrate my final decision on the number of pictures and placement.



I chose some pictures from Athens, Greece which display some of the many ancient buildings we were able to see on our trip. I placed the pictures on a black background then placed a 1/2" mat of patterned paper behind the octagon. I distressed the edges of the patterned paper mat to improve the definition against my 12 x 12 background paper. Then I added a title, flourishes, flowers and butterflies to embellish the page. I created a small triangle journaling box in the lower left corner. Here is "Athens, Greece."




This last page I did just for fun! I love the changing of the seasons and winter brings its own memorable moments. Since we have lots of snowy days here in Colorado I decided to try creating a snowflake template. The template is three pieces, a background, a foreground and a small shape that resembles the end of an arrow. The template is hand drawn, so it's not geometrically perfect, but as long as you note the top of each shape and stack them appropriately it should fit together as the sketch example here.




In the template below the small arrow shape is separate from the foreground template shape. I decided to do this for a few reasons. First, by removing this more delicate piece of the snowflake design it made it much easier to cut out the shapes. Second, it gives me the option to make this shape a different color which could enhance the end result depending on your choice of papers. Last, it makes assembling the snowflake shape a little easier, because you have some flexibility with placement. You will need to cut out six of the small arrow shapes.

Here is the template with the Background, Foreground and small arrow piece.




BoBunny came out with some very pretty papers this winter. I selected a few from their Snowy Serenade collection to produce this layout with me and my two dogs. My two buddies here just can't get enough of the snow, they could play for hours. Hope you enjoy "We Love the Snow."

(Click here to read more about Dolores!)