Emphasize Your Photos... With Nothing!

This month I ended up with 2-12x12 double layouts. This is a first for me. Ever. I am a 1 page kind of girl, kwim? But the Bo Bunny Block Party colors and patterns spoke to a number of the photos I had languishing in my to-be-scrapped pile. (I gotta get away from all the pink paper sometimes!)

One of the first things scrapbookers learn to do is mat photos. It's the natural thing to do. Put pretty pictures on pretty paper. Matting photos is an easy way to add emphasis. It lets your audience know which photo is the most important to you. It's the paper equivalent of "Look at me, Mom!"

As I was laying out the photos I wanted to use for this layout I had 2 sets... some poor quality, indoor action shots, and some better close-ups. I knew that I wanted the not-so-good photos on one side in a column and the others would be center stage. I fiddled with the papers for a while trying to figure out how to stretch one single piece of Good Times under all of my close-up shots when it hit me. I could use the background cardstock as a mat instead. Problem solved!

I used a dinner plate to draw a circle on the back of the Good Times paper. The circle was a smidgen small... so I used a curved ruler to finesse the middle of my circle to the edge of the paper (so I would have points instead of a blunt cut). Once I cut out one half, I flipped it over and traced it on the other half to ensure that the circles would mirror each other. The contrast between the bright blue of the circular frame really sets off the solid white and the photo feel matted even though they are just sitting on the background cardstock.

I matted my action shots on a piece of Block Party Stripe ... and those stripes kind of help reinforce the action theme and distract from the poor quality. But, hey, they're all I have and I'm not going to let that prevent me from scrapping them. I accented each side of the layout with a strip of the reverse of Block Party Sparkler (this also helped cover up some empty spots since there wasn't enough of the Good Times paper to go all the way to the edge).

I added some red, painted chipboard accents, some American Crafts candy dots, and a couple of half pieces of Basic Grey's kraft journaling spots (gotta save the other halves for another layout!). I was running out of some of the Bo Bunny letters from the block party combo sheet... so I trimmed down a couple of J's and B's into I's and L's to finish up the title.

thanks for stopping by!

erin