Pop culture layout - iConnect

Our podcast this week is all about pop culture - movies, music, tv, social media, etc. I've got a few layouts to share with you about pop culture this week starting with "iConnect" about my love of social media. Hope you like it!

I started by arranging the paper I loved into strips, because that's just how I roll.

At first, I was really struggling with how to arrange the 3 photos that I wanted to use. For some reason, 3 photos are hard for me to place. I played a little bit but didn't really like my options, so I decided to follow a sketch. Here are some pics of my unsuccessful playing around before the sketch.

Once I realized my plans weren't working, I went to Pinterest to look for some sketches. For this layout, I followed a sketch by Kristine Davidson.. Of course, I didn't do my layout exactly like the sketch, but it's pretty darn close. Here's the sketch:

I didn't go with a solid background but chose to stick with the paper strips I'd originally planned. I also played with the location of the photo strip and moved it much closer to the top of the page. This allowed me to work with larger photos, roughly 3.5 X 5 and to make my title and journaling block a bit larger than the original.

There's so much I could say about social media, but I thought I'd approach this page as an overview of that part of my life. I just took screenshots of my various accounts to use on this page. Some other time, I might do a page about what I like specifically about each site or about funny/interesting things I've said on that site in the past, but today was really just about pointing out how connected I am via social media. Plus, it gave me a great chance to use some of the new Jillibean Soup products. :)

I had so much fun creating this title block. I started with a Jenni Bowlin journaling card from a few years ago, added a title in Jillibean Soup stickers, layered the Amy Tangerine status sticker as a nod to media updates, and popped all of it up from a bit of brick red cardstock to ground it on the patterned paper that would be the background piece.

Rather than use a star embellishment to layer on my circle, I chose a couple of hearts and a thought bubble sticker. Remember that symbols like stars on a sketch aren't necessarily meant to be interpreted literally. I also decided to connect my journaling block to prevent trapped white space and to add to the purposeful vibe of the journaling placement. Floating the Jenni Bowlin shaped journaling sticker at the very bottom of the page just felt weird to me, so I moved it up a bit.

And the finished product -- I love the bright, happy colors and patterns, the linear, grid-style look, and the clean edges to the embellishment groupings. The products are fun and the design was different than I probably would've come up with on my own. I have a tendency to always stick to a visual triangle with embellishments/titles, so putting all that information on the bottom was a real departure for me. I think it works because the embellishments carry a similar visual weight as the picture strip does. 

Visit me on this blog, certainly, but feel free to visit me on social media too! Look for more projects on pop culture coming up throughout the week. :)