Scrapbooking with Templates: What if I Don’t Have Any Flowers?

Posted by Aaron aka Sir Scrapalot on Nov 16, 2010 | View Comments

Layering is one of the hottest trends in scrapbooking right now.  Layouts that feature flowers, string, ribbon and other elements all perfectly shadowed can be eye catching and fun.  My favorite template designer, Cindy Schneider over at Sweet Shoppe Designs, creates incredible templates that are expertly layered and make creating this look a snap.

One thing that I really love about Cindy’s templates are their versatility.  For example, over the weekend I was working with this template:

I loved all of the layers in this template.  The layered papers as well as the numerous layered flowers would give the layout the look of incredible dimension, which I am always looking to do on a layout.  There was one problem though….the kit I was working with didn’t have a whole lot of flowers.  For a long time, this would have deterred me from using this template.  As I have grown into using templates, I’ve begun to really embrace the idea that just because it’s a flower on the template doesn’t mean it has to be a flower on the layout.

In this case, I replaced all of the flowers with snowflakes (aren’t they winter’s flowers anyways?) and a few other large elements.  This is the layout I came up with:

Sometimes, I use a variety of elements to stand in for where there are flowers were on the template.  For example, I started with this template:

I replaced many of the flowers with stickers found in the kit and some word strips.  I even replaced the branch with a string, so that it would better fit with my layout.  This is the layout I ended up with:

Templates are a wonderful thing to work with.  They can make achieving a specific style or look easily accessible to all levels of scrapbookers.  It’s important to remember, however, that a template is just a starting point.  It’s up to you, the scrapbooker, to interpret the template to meet your needs.  Free yourself to make changes in a template, and you will open up a whole new door to your creativity!