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Monday, October 17, 2016

The Resource Theory and the Card Sketch Layout





I've always been a believer in you can do anything. Even those things you don't know how to do or have no skills at...as long as you have the resources to get the job done. I call this my Resource Theory. I believe in this so much I decided to have children after years of saying I wouldn't because 1.) I was fertility challenged and 2.) I come from a family who was Mother challenged and although my Dad had parenting skills I didn't think I could be an adequate Mother. After years of being around other girls/young adults and adults and their Mothers I learned one thing. I can do as I saw them doing. This is where my whole premise of the resource theory came from. Ask my children today what are two pieces of advice your Mother always gave you and they will say 1.) "You can do anything with the right resources" and 2.) "Make good decisions today"... or they might say 3.) "You come from a family of dorks so celebrate it...don't fight a good thing"...but you get the drift. 

So I was perusing Instagram the other night and came upon a blog, Something About Marie.  She talked about not being inspired by the sketch for a layout and focused on her card as the frame for her layout. This got me thinking or should I say stressing. What resources were out there that I wasn't tapping into, or worse yet what resources wasn't I using fully or correctly. 

Much to my husbands disdain, I have lots of resources in my life that I use for my art.  One that you may already know about is the Journaling Prompt and how I record those for use. Another if you follow along on the Facebook page, is the Mojo Card Sketches. They come out every Monday and I share the post on the Nina's Art Spot FB page. I do this because of my belief in the resource theory. These card sketches I use as a resource for when I'm stuck for an idea for a card layout. Sometimes they are merely stepping stones to a bigger idea for a card...but what if...what if I used them beyond what they were originally created for. What if they became a completely advanced Resource all together? So, I stewed on this idea. I pulled out my Mojo book of sketches and perused though it and ideas immediately started brewing. Thus was born a completely new resource right out of one that I was already using. The Mojo card sketch layout option.

Let me show you first how I have correlated my collection of Mojo sketches over the years. 


I took my old Z3208 Everyday Life 3 ring binder and used some PML cards and the My Crush Everyday Life Pages Z3210 from Close to my Heart and created the tabbed inserts.


The older sketches are laid out 4 up on a page.



Where as the 2015 and 2016 sketches I printed individually at 4" x 6" and inserted into Z3192 4" x 6" Memory protectors. 


So this is my Monday Mojo Card Sketch resource binder!


So the next step was to test this alternative resource within a resource. I perused through all the Mojo sketches and selected a couple to try. I then created them into single panels (no card flap). Here are the Mojo Sketches I choose and the single panels I then created.


Mojo #432 from 2016

Mojo #432 Photo Panel

Mojo Monday #432 Scrapbook Layout

  ~What you can't see is that I popped the panel up with 3D Foam tape so it appears to be hovering over the 12" x 12" page. However the angle of this photo didn't do it justice.

I have to admit there was something completely rewarding about doing this. I simply choose a Mojo Sketch that would fit the photo I had. I then picked out the papers for the panel. Like following any recipe that panel was pretty straight forward...but then the fun began. I laid the panel on top of the base page and looked at all the elements and paper I had left to my disposal and well I winged it. I just built upon the panel. It was very freeing and fun.

Here is the second page of the layout.


Mojo #121 from 2010


Mojo #121 Photo Panel



 ~Again...what you can't see is that I popped the panel up with 3D Foam tape.

With the second layout I pulled the basics from the first. Again this was completely satisfying and remarkably easy and fun. It did help that I was looking for something to do with an even I only had two photo's of. What is even nicer is that my daughters Senior Choir Banquet came right after her Senior Prom. I saved the Brushed Workshop on the Go to scrapbook the photo's from Prom so when placed in chronological order in her Senior Scrapbook it will all go together. Nothing more beautiful than when a non-plan comes together to look like it was planned. 

This opens up or nearly doubles my layout references. What a wonderfully awesome alternative. I hope you test these waters with whatever card layout reference you use. Comment back here and let me know what your take on this exercise is and if you found it helpful.

Here is a supply list of the items I used to create these two pages.

Supply List

  • Close to my Heart's X7190B Brushed Paper Pack (retired) available HERE on my etsy store
  • Close to my Heart's Z3013 Brushed Assortment (retired)
  • Close to my Heart's X7190C Brushed Complements (retired)
  • Close to my Heart's Z2002 Topiary Washi Tape (retired) available HERE on my etsy store


Happy creating.



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