Creating Layouts For Your Scrapbook

I think everyone I’ve ever spoken to who scrapbooks has said they’ve had the equivalent to writer’s block when it comes to laying out photos on scrapbook pages. There are times you can look at photos and look at a blank page and just not know what to do to turn the page into a story of the photos.

I recently took a trip overseas. When we arrived at the airport over there, many folks started snapping photos. I decided to also join in, in the snapping of photos. There was a welcome to the city sign. And of course the rest of the signage was not in English. I took the photos, knowing I could decide later whether to use them or not use them in my scrapbook.

When I began to put together my scrapbook from the trip, I looked at these photos from the airport and just didn’t know how to create a page that told the story of landing in a foreign airport and not being able to read the signage and not being able to understand the language.

As I began to rethink about the experience of arriving at the airport, I actually had a visual image of the ride "It’s a Small World" from Disneyland. At the very end of the ride, you see the word "goodbye" in many different languages. This gave me my idea for the layout of arriving at the airport. I decided to add the word "welcome" in as many languages as I could find, and then add the photos of the airport. The page ended up both colorful and fun to make.

Other times it can help to look at layouts from other people. I don’t condone "copying", however sometimes when you see examples of what other people have created, you can overcome your "writer’s block" and get ideas for your own pages. I actually saw two pages, that when combined made a great page for me.

We’ve all seen the scrapbook pages where letters are mounted onto square blocks. Sometimes this lettering is done across the top of a page, and sometimes it’s done along the side of a page. Squares can be any size with a letter right in the middle. I’ve also seen pages where shapes were punched out and both the punched out shape and the leftover frame from the shape were used on a page. Well, I combined these two techniques and created blocks on colored frames and then put the lettering on the blocks. I cut a ½" light blue square. I then cut a ¾" square from dark blue paper. I combined the frame from the dark blue paper with the small light blue square and it created a really pretty effect on the paper.

Try experimenting with different techniques and combining techniques to created your own unique layouts for your scrapbook pages.

About the author:
Audrey Okaneko has been scrapbooking for many years. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or here.