Scraps and Scanners- Create with Me Pt2

I love texture, scraps and getting creative. In my last post in this series I shared how I got out the scanner, began looking through my things for various papers and ephemera and began to work on my first elements pack.

I finally got that first pack finished and listed and even made a few sales. I. am now working on another rather different set and wanted to share more of my process and journey with you.

Beyond just scanning and photographing elements I also wanted to add some unique handmade elements. This is what can give something a lot of personality and feels very human. So I illustrated a few cut little drawings to add to my set using Procreate and making the most of my illustrating skills.

I also got out the sewing machine and free embroidery foot to go back to my sewing roots (I actually studied Fashion design before getting into graphic design) and sewed onto paper creating stitched scribbles. (something I used to love doing back in 2009/10) and also some binding and embroidery stitches with embroidery thread.

I also had a play around with paint and making paint splotches. I feel like so much of this is tapping into old skills and ways I used to love to create when I was first finding my style and experimenting with a lot of different mediums.

So I got my first set listed and have made few sales. The main task to get it up was the listing graphics, these are what sell it.

For these it is all about making examples of how these elements can be used. So I loaded all my elements into Canva and starting playing around with different layouts, creating a few different looks and including some photos and text to show how they can interact with your content. These are all about showing the potential. If I only showed a list of what you get (which I did also include) it wouldn’t look as exciting. It’s really about selling what is possible, and showcasing the potential these elements have to help you create beautiful designs.

I also started some Pinterest pin versions although I had a lot of client work come up that got me side tracked so Pinterest is something I want to come back to as I feel it’ll be a big driver of traffic as people love visually beautiful things on Pinterest.

Being the crazy creative I am that can’t focus on one thing also started another side experiment and started making illustrations and even hand painted a gingham pattern to make invitation designs as I want to try out the B2C market.

It’s been fun to try out different styles and mediums to create elements, and if these invites don’t take off, I will probably just use the elements created for them and use them for part of another elements set.

Again I think Pinterest will be big for this, so I need to work on a system to make it easy to start sharing more there.

Now the new set I am working on is my ‘whimsy sparkle’ set. This is a challenging one, as it involves a lot more photography then scans and getting lighting just right.

I’ve been trying to capture glitter which is a whole interesting challenge. Trying to get the light to hit it just right and then get the camera in front of it without ruining the lighting and also making sure everything is in focus. It takes a lot of trial and error and taking many shots of the same glitter page to make sure at least one works out.

I’ve also been laying down petal strings in fun way. They of course didn’t want to just sit in position, so I had to get out the hot glue gun to glue it all in place. This then also takes more time to edit. So I start with a photo then have to make small colour/light adjustments, remove the background then I added a black layer under to see it clearly and carefully had to removed the bits of glue in the image. So it’s time consuming but the results are quite beautiful.

My plan for this set is to add lots of sparkly and translucent things like gems, diamonties, clear beads, tissue paper and maybe some water colour backgrounds.

This whole experiment and creative process has been so much fun, it feel more artistic and playful. The downside is that it takes time, and while juggling kids, life and client jobs that keep popping up it’s taking me a while to bring it all to life. I already have plans for more element sets, so I am just keeping at it will share more along the way.