Composing Your Scrapbook Layout Idea

What approach do you take to your scrapbook layout idea? Is it dressing up a photo album or adding photos to a mixed collage of textures? Do you select your materials and then let your fingers do the walking? Or do you start with a blank sheet of paper and plan it out? How do you approach your scrapbooking layouts so that it brings YOU satisfaction and fun, while still delivering you a valued result?

Are you out to achieve wonders in a day with quick project ideas or simply to develop your theme a little further each session? Are you inclined to pick a wonderful photo or 2 and just let it happen from bits and pieces around your work space?

Or do you spend time shopping at scrapbooking sites and shops, like this one, for that very special effect in the right corner which will add just the right textural feel or prominence to balance a cluster of chenille fabric you've been trying to bring in for ages for an effect.

We love to create and others love to interpret our work. So, have you considered journaling your work? This will add a little more you by way of explaining the journey you've taken on your pages. Not just a caption, not just a word – but perhaps a poem or a quote or a joke or a clever font style, an intentional misspelling or even a child's exclamation - of what happened that day or in that special place.

You're the lucky one that gets to bring it all together. So what about making use of some consistent elements, such as a tie or a frame that appears on every page of your scrapbook and brings a sense of familiarity? Would that work - its up to you.

Here's some spatial terms which aren't normally applied to scrapbooking. Why not consider them as you create your next project?

• Hierarchical layouts, from large to medium to small and how they relate and contrast.
• The advantages of small blocks – where something happens in each square
• The notion of fronts and backs and 3D – a little more challenging, but worth considering in your scrapbook layout pages.
• Permeability or a feeling of movement through your images, textures and objects which increase their liveliness and how they relate to each other. Look for interesting textures and effects in various scrapbooking backgrounds.

Variety and richness on some pages. Or simplicity without embellishment to capture that special moment.

There's so much to think about with your approach to planning your scrapbook layout idea. So free up your ideas and let them flow. Design that space ! Have fun.