Inspired by │ where we ate

I think because I'm a crafter and scrapbooker I see things when I'm out and about that totally inspired what I make. A week or so ago my husband and I went out to eat lunch at a restaurant that I had been to before be he had not. It's called Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Company and its in Sacramento. I love this place, the whole aesthetic is just super cool. I love the way its decorated, I love the marquee lights they used for their sign, I love the menus, and I love the pallet wall as you enter the restaurant. I knew I wanted to make a layout for the visit and Kelly Purkey's Food Coma stamp set was definitely the perfect choice to accent it.

Here's the layout that I made, and the photos of the restaurant that helped inspire it.

The wood pallet wall as you walk into the restaurant is super cool. I would love to do something like this in my home someday. The texture is fantastic and I love the newspaper roses that they decorated the branches with. I used this wall as the inspiration for the background of my layout. I had this piece of wood grain cardstock in my stash and it totally worked, its old though but its from Pebbles.

The vintage clipboards used for the menus and the stained and frayed paper is such an amazing touch. Every detail is true to the design of this place and this kind of attention to detail is so impressive to me. I wanted to try to replicate the clipboard menus by stacking several sheets from an old Classic Calico 6 x 6 paper pad from Studio Calico. I made sure to bend up the edges so it wasn't super flat. I added several stamps from the Food Coma set to highlight the photos. The gold clips are from Pebbles and while bulky it helps carry over the design element I was trying to replicate.

I wanted to make sure to use the rating stamp that came with the stamp set so I just added another little stack of papers to the corner and added in a few more stamps.

It was a lot of fun putting this layout together and it was really fun finding things in my stash that could help replicate the feel of the restaurant to help tell the story. I hope this inspires you to look beyond the photos for design inspiration on your next layout.

See you soon,