Authentique Blog Sketch Challenge - Layout

Every month Authentique hosts a sketch challenge on their blog. They post a sketch for a layout and card on the first Saturday and you have until the end of the month to complete your projects. I've kind of gotten into participating in challenges over the past year because it gives me a starting place and a deadline. (Apparently both are much needed motivators for me.) So I thought I'd use this month's sketch challenge as the starting point for one of my design team layouts for The Scrapbooking Studio.

Here's this month's layout sketch from Authentique:

One of the things I like about this sketch is that it could be rotated 90 degrees to the left and you'd have a whole new looking layout with the same basic format. I may have to try that next.

And here's my layout based (although perhaps loosely) on the sketch:

The square in the middle offers a great opportunity to use either a gorgeous single photo or a photo collage if you want to pack several photos neatly onto one page. 

Now that I'm looking at this, I am thinking that I need to go back and add some journaling to "tell the story" behind this layout. Journaling is one of the things I struggle with. Fortunately the ledger lines in the background paper will provide an easy way to neatly add words to the pictures.

Papers & Die cuts - Authentique; Buttons - Buttons Galore; Orange flower trim, dress form chipboard - Maya Road; Cream Rose - Prima; DIY letters - Jillibean Soup; Twine - Karen Foster; Thread - Coats & Clark; Sewing Machine - Janome; Ink - Studio G