Hello there! This is Shelly back with another behind the scenes look at the makings of a double page layout.
This month, I am sharing my go-to trick when I don’t have a specific sketch or plan for a page. I love grids! There just isn’t anything else easier than editing a group of photos all the same size, then clustering them into one large photo block.
Sometimes it gets overwhelming when you have lots of photos that you want to include on your page. My solution is to pick 2 or 3 key photos that tell the big story and print those largest at 3x5 or 4x6. Then take the rest of the pictures and size them down to small squares, 3x4s, or even 2x3s so that I can make them fit together into a grid creating one large photo block.
Supplies: Find Your Wings and Fly – Sky’s The Limit: Titled pattern paper, Balloon Parade pattern paper, Flowers For You pattern paper, Zig Zag pattern paper, 6x6 paper pad, buttons. Other: String, Thickers, Silhouette, note book edge punch, scallop edge punch, tab punch.
For this page, I found my favorite two pictures; a close up of each my son and daughter. I sized the one of my son at 5x3.5 with a white border, and the picture of my daughter is 4x6 in size.
All the rest of my pictures are 2.5-inch squares with a white border. I love how editing them was a breeze without thinking too much about a sketch that I had in mind. I wasn’t even worried about how many square pictures I had. I could easily make my grid any size by filling in with extra pattern paper or embellishments to even it all out.
First step: Lay out my pictures. Initially, I was thinking of doing a 3x3 grid with my pictures, but then I kind of liked the idea of doing a simple 2x4 grid of solid pictures.
Second step: Choose patterns. I knew I wanted to use the soft colors of the Find Your Wings and Fly Collection. I have done quite a few pages with brighter bold colors, so this time around I thought I would change it up with soft and subtle.
I like to push my patterns and pictures around until I find something that is calling to me. After a few different layouts of pattern paper, I decided to go with (3) 4-inch strips of patter paper on the right side of my page, creating a pattern block with my 4x6 picture.
Next step: Fill in open spaces and embellish! With the right side of the page having a big open space, I thought it would be fun to fill it in with a large element. Seeing that this was a beach page, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dig out my circle cutter to create a large sun.
With the sun in its place, there was still plenty of room and a perfect landing for the title. I chose to go with a big bold title to help fill in more of that open space, layering it over the sun.
I have been itching to create a banner with the My Mind’s Eye button packs, but have never found the perfect page to do until now. I strung one up mixing in both buttons and banners.
I strung up a second button banner to carry that same look to the other side. I also had the perfect open space to the left of my daughter’s picture for some quick journaling, and added a scallop punched border to give a little more division between the two larger chevron patterns. Still feeling like I needed a little something extra on the top of this side of the layout, I cut a small strip of decorative tape to adhere to the top of my son’s picture.
Just because I like repeating elements on both sides of my layout, I chose to add a second strip of decorative tape to the top of the right side, and finishing that off with a button.
That’s when I took a step back, and thought… Yep, I think this is done!
So, have you used a grid or large photo block on your layout recently to fit lots of pictures on a page? I would love to see it! Or maybe it has been awhile. I hope I have inspired you today to get a jump start on those big memories. Use lots of pictures and create a double page layout with a big old block of photos.
Thank you for stopping by!
