Scrap Skills

One of the major principles of design is repetition. Many times in art or literature, repetition is used to bring attention to a particular detail or to emphasize something of importance. In a work of art, a vertical line might be repeated to give a piece height, or a shape might be used multiple times to evoke a certain feeling from the viewer. The same is true in the design of a scrapbook page. Steph at the Daily Digi wrote a great article with Debbie Hodge about this design principle here . She has many examples of ways to use repetition on a page effectively, from repeating a color or a shape to repeating themed elements. Chelle’s team members have given us a couple of examples to illustrate.

First, Leslie has made a page repeating the color of elements and repeating the use of one element in particular, the staple. First, the monochromatic look of her page gives the reader a true sense of the environment of the cave. The tour through Mammoth Cave is an incredible one, but there are very few colors to see when only using a flashlight. The overwhelming presence of dirt and rock in the cave is captured expertly by using the tans and browns in the On the Trail kit and by using a sepia tone for all the photos. The use of staples added to attach the photos to the page leads your eye from one photo to the next and draws the reader into the page.

Jenn also made a page to demonstrate repetition. She chose to repeat a shape, namely a circle, in a vertical line down the side of her page. With the sharp lines of the blocks on her page and the vertical nature of the list, the circular elements of brads and flower centers bring a nice contrast to the page, and they add to the emphasis that this is indeed a list to be read from top to bottom. She has also used careful placement of the red elements from the kit Naughty or Nice to guide readers. Red is such a strong color, it is always helpful in repetitions, and by having the title in red and then several red elements down the red strip, the eye is drawn down the page to read the list in order. By the way, her list has several items I would love to have, if any of my family happens to be reading this post. HINT HINT

If you haven’t stopped to read that post I mentioned earlier, you can get to it here, also. It has lots of helpful examples for using repetition in a scrapbook page and is definitely worth the read.

One thing I LOVE about digital scrapbooking is being able to easily add interest to a title by using multiple alphas. With traditional scrapbooking, it was so difficult and expensive to add multiple sticker letters to a page, that often my titles were short and boring. But, with digital scrapbooking it doesn’t cost any more to add 2 or more alphas to a title, and the impact is so great that I find myself doing it more often than not. I can mix kits I already own and use the alphas over and over without using them up, like I did with my favorite stickers, making any digital kit a great bargain. Take this page by Karen, for example: She has used 3 different alphas in the title, and the three different shapes, textures, and colors to the letters (and number) give emphasis to each word. It also fits the fun energy of the overall theme of the page about riding a roller coaster in the amusement park. She used Ticket to Ride for the page and she used the Rainbow Collection for the alphas.

Next, Ronnie used Chelle’s Chillin’ and Grillin’ kit for most of the page and 2 words in the title, but she supplemented her title with the Button Alpha, which is a neutral colored alpha and works with any color scheme. The Button Alpha highlights the word “family,” which is always a good word to emphasize on a page, and making the word “Fun” much larger than the others certainly tells you about the page’s purpose. In fact, everything about this page says “Fun” from the angle of the photo collage to the bright colors of paper strips behind the photos.

So, what if you are a “one kit” scrapper and the thought of mixing alphas from other kits makes your palms sweat? Chelle’s CU alphas are a great resource to help you. My friend Leslie has made a page specifically to show you a great way to break into the multi-alpha trend. She created a page with Chelle’s We Wish You A Merry Christmas {Bundle} which includes the red alpha she used in the title (it’s actually part of the Add-On which can be purchased separately from the bundle). Then, she used one of Chelle’s CU Dynamic Alpha Doodles and clipped a black paper to it to coordinate with the dark sweaters in the photo and the black music notes on the papers. Using a multipurpose alpha like this one with paper from your kit makes it easy to add that extra interest to your title without having to search through several kits to try to find a coordinating pattern.

I hope I’ve inspired you to break into the multi-alpha trend. See you next week!

We’ve all had those days: days when nothing goes right, our emotions are raw, and we wish things were different somehow. That’s the perfect time to turn on the computer and get out the digital scrapbooking supplies and make a page. After all, it’s cheaper than therapy, right? Sometimes, getting your feelings down on a page is very therapeutic. Take for example Leslie’s page. She recently moved across the country and has had an incredible workload because of her situation. Understandably, she is tired and frustrated. Rather than yell at her kids or sulk, she made a page using the dark paper and graph paper in Play the Game, CU Bubble Wrap Brushes, flowers from Eeeeek!, and she wrote about how she was feeling. It was the perfect therapy for the moment.

I like to do introspective pages on occasion, and I like to use quotes from literature or poetry to express my feelings. Somehow, I find that someone else has already written what I want to express at the moment. Kairyn also likes to use quotes, and recently she was thinking about family members who are far away, so she used a favorite quote to express her feelings. By the way, she used Chelle’s Family Tree kit to make her lovely page.

Jan decided to share a poster she made for us. I think it would be the perfect accessory to my home office wall. She used Chelle’s Fill Me In {Marker} alpha and the iOnline kit that was shared with her Facebook fans a few months ago.

You can download it here

Have you scrapped for therapy lately? It can be very helpful to relieving stress.