Tuesday, June 11, 2013

An Apple Page - Full of Photos


I tend to put a lot of photos on my scrapbook pages.  The fancy pages with one large photo and layers and layers of flowers and bling and other embellishments just don't appeal to me.  I want to include the photos that help me remember an event or occasion and a larger number of photos nearly always works better for me.

This is one of the pages that I completed in the Layout a Day challenge last month.  I started with a template that had 9 spots for photos.


I didn't care for the center stripe of card stock and the torn paper white strip along the top so I changed things up a little.  I deleted the torn paper strip and filled the green rectangle with one of my photos (a close up of harvested apples in a bin) and then added the title on top of the image.


In order to make the title stand out against the apple photo I added a green glow around most of the letters and placed a circle behind the letter "A," filled it with green sampled from the leaf in the image and then changed the opacity to about 50% so the apple background could show through.


I added a very thin mat around most of the photos as a way of making them "read" as a group.  I also like the way the page looks without the mats (above).  One of the great things about digital is that you can keep switching from one version to another until you finally make up your mind!


I changed the background paper along the bottom of the page to a brighter red and added an embossed dotted texture.  Then I shifted the torn paper strips just a bit and created a central medallion image with one more photo.  This was a photo of some apples on the tree and I applied a filter to "sphereize" the image and discarded the clipped corners.  Then I layered three of the images together (two small and one large) and created a cluster to place on the paper strips.

In the end, there were eleven photos added to this page and the apple sphere embellishment can be saved and used for additional projects as well.

The prompt for the page was a mystery book title - "A" is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton.  In our family, A is for apple.  We just got back from a quick trip out to the family apple farm in upstate New York so this page came to mind to share today.

Do you like pages that are full of photos?  What is your "preferred" number of photos on a one page layout? How many on a two page layout?  Please comment with your ideas about how many photos should be shown on a page.  Would it be more (or less) if you were making a paper page instead of a digital project.

We'll be seeing more family this weekend and I will have limited internet time.  I have a few things to finish up today that I can share while we are busy.  It's raining cats and dogs here - I hope your weather is better!

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21 comments:

  1. I love everything about this layout. Yes, lots of photos work for me as well. You still, however, made it a beautiful piece of artwork with your design elements. I work with Photoshop Elements and am just learning some of these similar tricks. Thanks for your detailed posting. I look forward to my daily (almost) learning from you.

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    1. Thank you Carolee. The names may be different but I am sure you can do similar things with Photoshop. I am happy to hear that you enjoy the emails - I haven't been on the regular daily schedule so far this year but I try to post as often as I can. After nearly four years of everyday posting, I am allowing myself to be a little more flexible for now...

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  2. Love this page! I do like lots of photos on a page.

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    1. Thanks Miranda - The photos are the most important thing, I agree!

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  3. I'm with you on lots of pictures on a page. I don't do digital and use an 8 1/2 x 11 format. I use whatever number of photos I have that tell the story. I have done 1 photo pages when honoring someones birthday, and up to 6 or more if they are cropped small.

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    1. Hi Bobby, I usually only do 8 1/2 x 11 for things like recipe books. It can be challenging to fit a lot of photos without cropping - just less space to work with on 8 1/2 x 11 but more practical in some ways. Digital is fun and highly addictive. I really like the ability to try different ideas just by clicking the mouse. But you have to like using a computer and I know some people don't find that relaxing.

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  4. Great LO! I love this idea as I also like to use lots of pics, especially of the DGS's TBall, Baseball and Soccer LO's - thanks for some great ideas!

    Jackie

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    1. Hi Jackie,
      This sort of page would be great for those group activities - room for lots of action shots! You can also use one more photo for the page background - if things are placed carefully you won't block your subject.

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  5. I'm a proponent of scrapbook pages having at least a few pictures per page--afterall it is a photo album and the photos should be the main attraction! How much does one page cost when there's one small picture and a lot of embellishments? A lot of them are very pretty, but not very practical. How many "fat pages" can you get in a photo album. Of course if it's all digital it's a different story. Still I do like to be able to find the pictures.

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    1. Hi Anne - I agree! I feel that the scrapbooking trend has been to get caught up in making heavily embellished pages that sometimes completely overshadow the photos. And my pages have to be nearly flat or they don't go into an album!

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  6. Since the photos tell the story, and not the embellishments, I tend to have several pictures on a page. I scrapbook in an 8.5 x 11 format, so it can be challenging to include several photos on a page, but I try!

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    1. Hi Wendy, If you are working with digital photos you can always plan out your page and then crop and print the photos to fit the spots you create for them. If they are older photos you could crop or scan and edit them to get the shapes and sizes you need. Why do you prefer the 8 1/2 x 11 format?

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  7. Love this Lo, what digital scrapbook software do you use and how much does it cost to print your pages. I have found this online company called Scrapping Simply and I have just started getting into digital scrapbooking. I have made a few pages now you can see them here @ www.cuttinscraps.blogspot.com take a look at tell me what you think.

    Thanks

    Luria

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    1. Hi Luria, I use the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator 4.0 software. There are lots of places to get pages printed but you have to be careful about quality. Many people like Persnickety Prints and even Costco if you want them right away. I took a peek at your pages - very nice! I'll have to check out that site more carefully when I get a chance (it wanted me to install something to look at the templates so I didn't see them yet).

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    2. Hi Diane! I just bought the Creative Memories StoryBook software a couple of months ago, but haven't had a chance to start my project yet. Now I hear that Creative Memories has filed Chapter 11 and will no longer be printing from it's software after August. Do you have any recommendations of where we can print our CMSC books? Thank you.

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    3. Hi Betty,
      Apparently they are still in talks about another company picking up support and printing. No real news yet.
      But don't worry - you do have the ability to save each of your finished pages as a JPEG and then you can upload the full page images to any of a number of vendors that print books. I am planning to try out a few so I can recommend an alternative for printing your books.
      Let me know if you don't understand how to save your pages and I'll try to write a post explaining the process for using another printer as soon as I can.

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  8. I so agree with you, Diane. Scrapbooking for me is all about the photos. I rarely put just one photo on a page, and I never want my embellishments to steal away the focus. I LOVE your apple page!

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    1. Hi Cheryl, Thanks - I am glad you like my page! It helps when you start with at template even if you end up changing things around (sometimes I end up with something that looks nothing like the place I started!). I like to make my own embellishments with my photos when I can - then the page is still about my photos.

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  9. Hi Diane. Thanks for checking out my pages. I will have to look into Storybook creator 4.0 As well.

    Luria

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  10. Yes! I tend to load my pages with photos. I LOVE taking pics and don't have the heart not to include them, however, I don't want 20 pages of the same event. I am trying to push myself to try digital scrapbooking and you pushed me over the edge I was teetering on. THANKS! So glad someone else asked what software you used - that was my next question!

    I also love the suggestion - design the lay out and use your older photos (all those ones I STILL have scrapbooked yet). GREAT idea to help me get caught up. I have 3 kids and do separate books for each of them - same page times 3 - this would SPEED things up big time.

    Questions for you - do you print your pages at home or use a service? Which ever you use, can you please share model or company. THANKS

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    1. Hi Jilleen, I take tons of photos just of everyday things and even more when we go on a trip. Digital is a great way to combine lots of photos, pull out the interesting details and make pages that share your experiences quickly and easily. Using templates as a starting point makes things go even faster but I also enjoy doing a page "from scratch." It is fun especially after you have learned some techniques that you can use over and over.
      I use the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator 4.0 program and love it. Creative Memories is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization now so I am not sure how much longer they will be selling the software.
      I have pages printed at various places - CM did printing (not sure if it will continue), Costco does a nice job with 12 x 12s and I have heard good things about Persnickety Prints. I also print most things smaller than 12 x 12 at home - I don't have a wide format printer...yet!
      I am away for a few days but please let me know if you have more questions (I am still a CM consultant). Digital is a great addition to your crafting resources!

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