Give Me 15 More Minutes!

When you are working on a layout, have you ever found yourself saying, "Can you guys just give me 15 more minutes?" Maybe it doesn't happen all the time, but 15 minutes can make a big difference in your work. I challenged myself to work on a layout with results to show in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and then finally an hour. I will say that normally my layouts do average around 45 minutes to an hour's time. I tend to design most of my layouts with the little added details that fill those extra minutes. I will say though that when I looked at the layout at 30 minutes I could have easily stopped. So whether you have 15 minutes or an hour, you are guaranteed to create a great layout!

15-Minute Mark

1) First step: decide on a picture. Honestly for me this is often the most time-consuming part. I print my pictures all from home and only print when I am ready to work. This does involve paging through my photo gallery for what catches my eye, editing and then printing.

2) After choosing and printing a picture, I now pick some supplies to work with. For this picture, I am using the brand-new Creative Imaginations Vibe and Fresh lines.

Stop! My 15 minutes are up. Are you surprised? I don't have anything yet to show you! In my first 15 minutes I've used my time printing and editing a picture, pulling supplies and just getting a feel for what I want to do. Granted, had I had a picture ready, I think my layout would have already been started. But let's keep going!

30 Minutes...

3) Now I'm ready to start. I start by deciding where to place the photo. To me that is the start of the entire layout. Everything falls into place around it. Once I've done that the paper cutting and embellishing begins. I now add some inking around the edges of the papers, hand cut a paper, detail the papers with my pen, and add some red Stickles for accents on the page.

It looks good, but I haven't gotten a title on the page yet. So to me it's not really done. If I was hoping to be completed, I'd still need to get that title on. So maybe I need 31 minutes!

Moving onto 45 minutes...

4) Okay so let's take it a bit further. I added a wave border sticker. I punched and cut some circles from the papers, inked the edges and adhered them to the layout. I also added the title.

5) I applied a matching rub-on to the side of the photo and added more colored Stickles to it.

6) Last I added a bit of journaling to the top.

Now to me, this layout is done. It looks great: balanced and complete. But if I did get those 15 extra minutes, what could I do?

The final 15 minutes ...

7) I grabbed some fun chipboard scrolls and got out my white paint. I painted on two coats of white. Once dry I inked the edges with ColorBox Chalk inks.

8) I then added the scrolls to the page, some flower punches, buttons and a chipboard flower to finish!

So in one hour's time I printed and edited a picture, gathered supplies and made several layouts. At 30 minutes I made a simple, clean-lined layout. At 45 minutes I made that layout into one with some fun embellishments and little accents. As it was, it was great. I would have most likely stopped there. But I took a few more minutes, 15 to be exact, and added some fun chipboard scrolls for that watery feel, and some flower punches.

Regardless if I had 30 minutes or an hour, all the layouts I created I was pleased with. So have fun scrapping and see what you can do in 15 minutes!

Shop at the Scrapbook.com Superstore for all your Scrapbooking Supplies!
Enjoy 5-Star service, HUGE selection and LOW prices!
Click here to start shopping!