Super Fast Scrapbooking
At our weekend scrapbooking retreat last spring I offered a Make & Take session called "The 15 Minute Layout". I shared my top 5 tips and tricks for super fast scrapping with our scrapping ladies, and then provided a layout, instruction and materials for them to make a layout in literally 15 minutes or less. Here are the tips to help you save time and energy on YOUR layouts:
1. Don’t crop your photos – especially into shapes! Use 4 x 6’s or make one cut to make 4 x 4 photos. These sizes work especially well within the 12 x 12 page as 12 is divisible by both 4 and 6!
2. Use coordinating products. This is where kits and Page Paks come in handy. If you don’t have a kit, choose one piece of cardstock as a base (you can’t go wrong with white), one patterned paper and one smaller piece of a coordinating solid (ie: use a scrap!)
3. Use generic embellishments. Flowers, stars, hearts, circles all work well on most layouts. They can be cut or punched from the coordinating paper quickly and easily. Save perfectly matched embellishments and labor intensive techniques for those super special layouts.
4. Handwrite your journaling. YES! Don’t worry about formatting it perfectly on the computer, printing and trimming it – record the facts or the story in your own handwriting for an authentic touch.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Use a sketch, or copy another layout you like. I have several go-to layouts that I rely on when I want to get many pages done fast. I know they work well from a design standpoint and I don’t have to search through books and magazines when I am in a rush.
So, let’s make a page! Here’s the sketch we will refer to:
And here are the step by step instructions:
1. Don’t crop your photos – especially into shapes! Use 4 x 6’s or make one cut to make 4 x 4 photos. These sizes work especially well within the 12 x 12 page as 12 is divisible by both 4 and 6!
2. Use coordinating products. This is where kits and Page Paks come in handy. If you don’t have a kit, choose one piece of cardstock as a base (you can’t go wrong with white), one patterned paper and one smaller piece of a coordinating solid (ie: use a scrap!)
3. Use generic embellishments. Flowers, stars, hearts, circles all work well on most layouts. They can be cut or punched from the coordinating paper quickly and easily. Save perfectly matched embellishments and labor intensive techniques for those super special layouts.
4. Handwrite your journaling. YES! Don’t worry about formatting it perfectly on the computer, printing and trimming it – record the facts or the story in your own handwriting for an authentic touch.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Use a sketch, or copy another layout you like. I have several go-to layouts that I rely on when I want to get many pages done fast. I know they work well from a design standpoint and I don’t have to search through books and magazines when I am in a rush.
So, let’s make a page! Here’s the sketch we will refer to:
- Use a piece of 12" x 12" white or solid cardstock as your base.
- Cut your patterned paper into a 7.5" x 12" strip.
- Place that across the layout as shown and adhere.
- Line up and adhere three 4"x6" photos edge to edge directly on top of patterned paper strip.
- Punch three shapes from the scrap of solid coordinating paper. Arrange in Z shape on page.
- Handwrite your journaling below photos.
- If you like, add a precut title embellishment, letter stickers or die cuts for a title.
KI Patterned Paper, Paperbilities Cardstock, CM Star Punch
I loved all the layouts the ladies at our retreat came up with based on this simple sketch...I WISH I would have taken photos of them to share! I hope these tips help you get lots of layouts done super fast!
Thanks Maria. I just took a look at Craft Crave...what a cool idea!
ReplyDelete