{Free} Template Tuesday

Happy, happy Tuesday to you. I have another free template for you. 

Truth be told, I don't use a lot of templates. Let me explain. I don't use a lot of other people's templates. I really struggle with using a template. It feels incredibly confining and I can't even figure out where to start. But I often make templates of my own layouts ... since I find things I like and then do them over and over and over again (like the stroke I put around EVERYTHING). When I find something I like, I add it to all of my layouts. I used to not. I used to tell myself I couldn't do the same thing over and over again. I told myself that wasn't interesting or creative. But guess what? The things I do over and over again are the things I like, the things that make me happy. So why not add them to every layout I create? If you like bananas, no one criticizes you if you have one every morning. And so it with my scrapbooking ... I incorporate the things I like and repeat them all the time. No reason to reinvent the wheel when I already know what works for me. 

DOWNLOAD THE LAYERED PSD FILE HERE.

On this template, the journaling strips are a staple in my scrapbooking. I love, love to use journaling strips. I also really love to layer lots of paper. I think I like this because it's reminiscent of paper scrapping and it allows me to get a lot of variety with just fun, patterned paper. So when I had created a layout with lots of paper layers and journaling strips, I made it into template, so I could repeat these looks on other pages. 

This was the inspiration layout ... the one I based this template on. If I'm being totally honest here, I don't love it. If I where to do it all over again, I'd pick a more subtle color scheme and I would do a completely different title treatment. But at least I recorded an important story and I learned more about my scrappy style ... even if it was in doing something I didn't like. 

Have you used one of my templates? I'd love to see what you created!