There are a lot of templates in my stash. And I am always looking for different ways to use them. One of those ways is adapting them for pocket pages. Today I’m going to show you a couple of ways to do that.

Adapting your templates is a great way to stretch your stash. And the ideas I am going to show you can easily be combined with pocket page templates to create a world of possibilities. So let us have a look at three techniques I often use.

The first way to adapt a template is making it smaller. This works well with templates that have big items on them and not too many layers. I chose one of Gina Millers Foxy Templates for this technique. Because the composition is centered on the page it still works really well when you reduce the size. To go from a full 12×12 inch layout to a 6×4 inch card you need to reduce the size to 50%.  As you can see I leave a few layers out when changing the size. In this case I leave out the background layer and the elements in the bottom right corner. The composition is smaller but remains intact.

Another way to adapt templates is by removing layers. I often do this for full size layouts. It also works very well for pocket pages, but it takes a bit of work to find out what to keep and what to delete. So I came up with a little tric that I will show you using one of the On This Day 2 templates by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs. I create a new layer, fill it with a neutral color and set the opacity at 80%. Next I create a rectangle at the size of a 6×4 inch card. The shape has no color fill, only an outline. Now I move the shape around the template as a viewfinder. That way I look for the part that looks best within the 6×4 inch outline. When I think I have found the look that I like, I delete the rectangle from the color layer. Now I can see through and decide if I really like to use this part of the template. If so, I delete all the other parts of the template and keep the elements inside the viewfinder/rectangle.

There is another way to adapt a template to use in a pocket page. And again it has to do with removing layers of the template. To show you this third technique I work with one of Scrapping with Liz’s Artsy Journal Templates 34. This template has a photo layer that is about the same size as a 4×6 inch journal card. I decide to keep only the layers on top and remove all the layers underneath the photo layer. Depending on the composition of the template you decide which layers you want to keep and use in your pocket page. Sounds obvious, but don’t delete layers to quickly. Make sure the composition still works and keep the elements that speak to you and fit your page. In this case I really wanted to keep the scribble/string element, but decided against it in the end because it didn’t work on the page.

With these three ways to adapt a template I created this page. The first technique is visible in the top left corner. In the bottom left corner you can see I used the journal part from the second technique. And the third way to adapt is used for the right top part of the page. While I used three very different templates, in this pocket page it all comes together. My pocket page is made with Extravagant by Lynne-Marie as it really suits the orange fowers. I repeat patterns and elements from the kit so it no longer looks like a combination of template parts. It is now a complete page.

Which way you choose to adapt will depend on the design of the template and on the layout you want for your pocket page. Experiment with removing and reducing items to create the look that works for you. I used all three ways in one page, but of course you don’t have to. Choose what works best in your layout. And why not try these techniques to mix your full page templates with pocket page templates.