Hey everyone I’m super excited to be presenting my very first Polly blog post here at TLP. Every month I enjoy playing along with the challenges and one of my favorites is seeing what designer will be giving us a cool new template for the template challenge. This month Lynn Grieveson is giving us a super easy clean & simple template design that lends itself well as a clean slate ready for your creative ideas! Find the November challenge template in the shop right now and it’s totally FREE for the month.

If you know me, then you know I love me some clusters but sometimes I just need a clean slate to be creative with. To let all my ideas just ebb & flow on the page. The template Lynn designed this month allowed me to do just that. This is Lynn’s template:

I started with the clean slate of her simple design with all that whitespace:

and my first steps were pretty simple:

• since I knew the exact photo I wanted I clipped it to her photo spot
• then duplicated and clipped that to the “blue paint” element

from there I let creativity guide me:

I had no real direction for this page:

• so I started with my background paper
• and added some white gesso elements and the pine needle stamp
• the word bits were next and I created a “freestyle” poem out of the different word bits in the collection
• then it was time for the cluster-y elements like foliage, flowers, buttons and that cute bird sticker

I loved the page simple like above and could have finished it off right there. But I love big clusters and I cannot lie; of course I didn’t stop and added more to my page. I have to say I love it even more after adding all of the details I consider “my style” and this is what my end result was:

Layout Credits: Lynn Grieveson November Challenge Template, and Rachel Jefferies Inglewood Collection. (part of Document Your December 2022)

Like I said above sometimes you just need a clean slate to allow creativity to flow freely. This template was perfect for a low-key scrapping session today. From clean & simple to overflowing with elements, templates are so varied and different, but each one has its place when I’m scrapping depending on my mood and needs. Hopefully you enjoyed seeing a bit of my process for this clean slate. The November challenge template is free until the end of this month make sure to grab it and play along if you haven’t already!!