I will start this out by saying that my own personal style of scrapping is not the "end all be all" of scrapbooking. As you begin to make your own pages, you will begin to develop your own style. What I may do on my pages may not be your style and you might not like mine at ALL. That is alright! Everyone develops what they like and no two pages or scrappers are ever alike. That makes things fun and interesting!
This post will be about selecting the right paper to go with your photos. For me, this was the HARDEST thing to learn. I would sit on the floor with all my paper. I would leaf through it and have no idea what paper to put with the photos I wanted to scrap. There were times when I would stop and have nothing done. I'd be frustrated that I hadn't even picked out paper! As I got more comfortable making pages, I got faster and better at picking out the paper.
For this post, I picked out three photos I wanted to scrap. These are photos of my and my bratty hubster at the creek this past summer. He hates getting his picture taken and was making goofy faces.
A lot of people's first instinct would be to choose a grey/white based pattern for the background paper to match the black and white photo. Perhaps something like this?
For me, this would not work. The bottom photo almost blends into the background paper. When I scrap, I want the photos to be the stars of the page. I'm not so concerned about being perfectly matched as I am about making the photos "pop". A busy patterned paper would also be a choice for some people. Something like this:
For my personal style, this wouldn't work. The bottom photo is seeming to blend into the background. The busy background also seems to detract the viewers gaze from the photos. I like to find a small spot of color in one of the photos, a color that may not be super prevalent in the photos(something my lovely cousin , Terri taught me) and use that as the background color. In this photo, I chose the dark pink from my bratty hubby's mouth
Since this darker pink isn't seen a lot in all the photos, they seem to stand out from that background, yet the paper still matches. None of the photos seem to blend in and stand out on their own, which is what I look for when scrapping a layout. The paper I'm using is the Clementine paper pack.
The next step for me, is to pick another paper to mat the photos with. Matting a photo means to take a photo, adhere it to another piece of cardstock and trim around it, leaving a small border of 1/4 an inch or so (more or less depending on your own tastes). I always like my mat colors to stand out from the background paper, yet still somewhat match the photos. Once again, I like the mat photos to not blend in too much with the photos. I originally was going to choose the pale blue in the sky in one photo to use as a mat color.
After looking at the other papers I had laying close to me, I had a change of heart. I found a darker blue and it really just looked better even though the shade of blue didn't exactly match the blue in that patch of sky. That's one good lesson to learn in scrapbooking. Don't be afraid to change your mind or think outside of the box. Here's the paper I finally decided on using for the photo mats.
I just liked the look and really, it's your scrapbook and you should use what you like. Note that this is not going to be my photo arrangement. I'm just placing them like this to choose the paper colors. Nothing is glued down. This layout will be a simple one. The future "Starting to Scrap" series will follow the project as I turn it into a 2 page layout. That reminds me of another tip. If you're buying single sheets of scrapbook paper at a craft store, always buy in multiples of two. If you're making a 12x12 scrapbook, you'd want the two pages next to each other to have the same background, so you'd need 2 of the same thing. I usually buy 2 or 4 because I never know when I'll want to make a second layout of the same event using different but related photos and the same papers.
Pull out the first set of photos you want to use (I recommend using copies and not the originals) and try laying them out against the cardstock/scrapbook paper you have. Find the papers you would like to use~
Until next time, happy crafting!
great tips!
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