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Remember the old borders we used to make for the sides of our pages years ago? They were often intricate, time-consuming, and sometimes even a distraction from the photos.
Edge gatherings are similar to borders, but they’re much easier to put together and they’re way cooler.
They’re also not so cumbersome. Click to read more…
Can’t have “pretty” and “trendy” pages if you have a fair amount of journaling?
Can’t tell a good story if you want to use lots of fun product and layering?
I was getting tired of always sacrificing form for function to fit my writing. We like to have it all, don’t we? And we can…
What is the most important thing to pay attention to in terms of design?
Well, I won’t say there is one, but I will say that a top one on the list is your lines.
This includes the obvious lines, but also the implied lines, as well as invisible lines.
Yes, there are invisible lines to keep in mind and they’re practically as magical in their power to help us as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet was to her!
And what is one of our favorite parts of scrapbooking?
Embellishments, of course!
If your placement of embellishments isn’t satisfying you 100%, you might need to pay more attention to your lines. The lines on your pages make wonderful homes for embellishments.
What kinds of lines am I talking about?
Edges of photos, edges of papers, and edges of circles, to name just a few.
It’s all about how your make your items interact with lines.
Give it a try!
Shine On,
P.S.> In the Q&A portion of True Scrap some ladies in the audience asked me to explain the use of lines since they hadn’t heard this discussed in scrapbooking before.
That’s why I decided to make this week’s video a demonstration of lots of ways to use lines to place embellishments, including how to use those awesome invisible lines.
The video is for Paperclipping Members, so if that’s you, you can watch it now!
If you’re not a member, CLICK HERE to learn more!
Trends in patterns and background papers come and go.
What does not come and go are the moods and ideas that those same patterns communicate.
This year the chevron pattern is hot. We might use it because we love it right now, or because our stash is full of it.
No matter what our reason for using it, chevron communicates some very specific things:
If our motivation for using chevron is just that we’re loving it so much right now, then what we see when we look at our page is that great print we love. But others who don’t pay attention to scrapbook trends will see some of the ideas I listed above, even though it will be sub-conscious and not something they could put their finger on.
Not only that, but in years to come, when you’re long past the excitement of the current trend and you’re looking back through your scrapbook, you’re more likely to sense excitement, movement, change, or up’s and down’s, as well.
That’s all great if those ideas support your story.
But what if your story is about this home you’ve lived in since your first baby was born, and now you’re welcoming your first grandchild for a visit in the very same home? Maybe a pattern that communicates stability and steadiness will give a better sense of how you feel about your memory and story.
And while geometrics are the “in” type of pattern right now, don’t forget organic patterns, which tell a whole range of emotions and moods that no geometric can!
Trends are fun, but good stories are timeless.
Don’t forget the organics when telling your stories.
Shine On!
P.S.> This week we released a new video tutorial that shares what the moods and associations are for some of the organics. I share lots of different layouts with organic patterns and show you how the associations of the patterns help tell the stories.
You’ll also see me assemble a page and explain why I picked the patterns I did.
This video is available for Paperclipping Members to watch right now!
If you’re not a member, please click here to learn more!
When you hear about white space in scrapbooking what do you think of?
I hope you mostly think of the second one.
I don’t say that because there’s anything wrong with the first one — just that it’s a very limited view of white space, and white space is an essential part of every single layout, no matter what the layout is like.
Before I learned about design principles I had this growing sense that the spaces I was making between my 5-7 photos and my cropped papers made a huge difference in my pages, though I couldn’t yet say why. Then I started teaching myself to paint. One thing I learned is that paying attention to the spaces around the subjects in your paintings are at least as important as the subjects themselves.
From then on this phrase has always stuck with me: Mind your space!
You don’t need formulas for how much space to use at varying spots. Just pay attention to it and ask if the spaces you’re creating when you lay things down are pleasing and deliberate.
This simple act of redirecting your attention will make an enormous difference!
All these years I’ve been talking about design and how to use space, I’ve never talked much about “trapped white space.” I’ve rarely had to deal with it myself so it never occurred to me until recently to talk about it.
How is it possible I have very rarely run into trapped white space on my pages? Before I even knew what it was I figured out early how to place my items in certain ways that prevent you from trapping white space altogether.
So this week we made a video tutorial where I share…
For a larger study on maximizing your white space, other episodes related episodes that Paperclipping Members can watch are:
You must have a membership to watch the videos. Click here to find out about a Paperclipping Membership.
Ready for some video tutorials? Click here!
I know you’ve experienced this…
You have a great page going. Then you add the journaling. And now you don’t like the page.
You probably assume your handwriting is the problem, right?
Sure, the handwriting may be part of it. But there is another cause that is just as common. In fact, if you fix this other problem, then your handwriting probably won’t affect your page, even if it is, ummm…
Okay, I’ll just say it…even if your handwriting is ugly.
Not everybody can make their handwriting gorgeous. But everybody can learn to fix that other most common problem that takes a page from fabulous to not-fabulous, and mask the handwriting, too.
I’ve just released a new video tutorial that explains the real problem with journaling. You’ll learn the different ways that you can make your journaling fit with your page, and even make the design better!
I hope you enjoy it!
The video is only for members. If you’re a member, you can go watch it now.
If you’re not a member yet, click here to learn about a membership.
I have some beef with something we keep saying on the Roundtable.
Have you heard us say on the show that your family doesn’t expect a Monet or a Picasso?
That your kids just want to see their pictures and read their stories?
That they’ll have no idea whether the paper is on trend this season or released in 2005, or that you didn’t make a visual triangle?
Is the advice true? Yes.
But did it help you feel better about pages you make but don’t like?
Probably not.
And why is that?
It’s because we’re not just sharing our pages with our children. We’re also online sharing our pages with other scrapbookers. So let’s be real — the pressure is still on.
And it’s also because a huge part of our motivation is the joy of making beautiful stuff.
Because we value aesthetics and skill.
When did it become wrong to want to gain or improve skills?
It didn’t.
So how do you gain and improve your scrapbook design skills?
You cycle through these steps over and over again:
And on and on…
Learn design principles from good explanations and lots of examples. That’s what I’m trying to give you with my videos.
And what about the analyzing? This means you look for the principles in action on great pages. Or you look for the missing principles that would have helped a page out.
Then you try it on a page.
And as you continue to learn more principles, you’ll get it more and more.
It’s a cycle.
You ready to roll?
You can jump onto that cycle of improvement today with a Paperclipping Membership.
Start with any of my video tutorials, get lots of explanations and examples from me, see how to analyze a page, and then continue the cycle with each episode.
Did you know there are almost 175 videos in the membership to learn from?
What will it be like when you send your oldest or youngest off to college away from home? What was it like, if you’ve already done it?
Cindy Wick had designed the left side of this page with all these wonderful pictures which give a comprehensive view of the sending off of her daughter. Notice the variety of visuals –from the Motel 6 to the sub sandwiches to the shopping cart full of stuff to the goodbye’s — that will trigger very specific memories for Cindy and her daughter forever.
Once Cindy got all the photos and the fun design on her page, she realized she had a big story to tell with lots of mom-feelings to share, but not enough space. The page sat on her table while she tried to figure out what to do, and then…
A super hero of the day flew in in the form of Paperclipping Episode 173 – A Journaling Design technique!
(I realize the above statement is as un-humble as it gets! I hope you don’t mind a little bit of boasting!).
I am really proud because I read Cindy’s journaling and it’s so moving. What a shame it would have been had she decided to condense it to make it fit, or remove some photos instead!
And of course, the icing on the cake was that by using the tutorial’s idea she was able to have fun and share her own feelings of pride and celebration for her daughter through the visual design and all the wonderful little details.
Turns out you really can have it all!
Doesn’t her design show celebration and growth all at once?
So I wanted to share it with you.
Cindy said some pretty great things about her Paperclipping Memberhsip, too, and I hope it’s okay for me to be a proud mama of my videos and quote some of what she said:
While I’m at it, I should say that I am a member of paperclipping and I really have gotten so much out of my membership. I consider myself a decent page designer, but I still learn new things from Noell all the time! She has a way of introducing things in a new and fresh way ~ it always gets me thinking creatively.
That’s probably because her way of teaching design is to get you to think of design principles as flexible, instead of using more concrete methods…Her videos are SO different, creative, and well thought out, I’ll probably be a fan for life.
(Thanks so much, Cindy!).
Okay, gushing moment over.
If you haven’t read Cindy’s journaling yet, please do! It’s an awesome example of how to share your own wonderful human emotional stories!
To see a larger version, click here to see her blog post, then click on the layout itself.
Want to see what all the hubbub around the Paperclipping videos is about?
(Did I just say hubbub?).
Click here to find out and maybe you’ll get the solutions you need to your scrapbooking dilemmas! >> http://www.paperclipping.com/membership
I want to get some succulents for inside and out the home and since my expertise with potted plants has always been to kill them, I thought I would try expanding my skills and see if I can learn to keep them alive!
So I was watching this video on YouTube and thought it was a fun little demonstration on the basics of design. I personally learned design by studying how it’s applied in many different fields, so I thought I’d share this with you for a different take!
Are you ready to dig much deeper into design than the mere basics? What if the in-depth training was specifically for scrapbokers?
Check out my design course – Design Your Story: From the Ground Up.
Do you ever have stories that require lots of journaling, but your idea for a page doesn’t leave you enough room?
This happens to me all the time. I’m a journaler. And I love the artistic part of scrapbooking, too.
It suddenly occurred to me one day that we can mix the two more easily with one simple solution: Combine a 12×12 page with a 6×12 page, which is what you see above.
I feel so free now! I no longer have to expand my layout to a full two-page 24×12 inch spreads whenever I have a few pictures, a fun idea, and too much to say!
It all started with this layout…
I wanted to compare my childhood swing sets with current ones. I had four photos and the story. Plus I wanted to give an explanation for each photo.
I really didn’t need two 12×12 pages, but a single just wasn’t going to cut it, even with the simple clean design.
Suddenly it became my easy fix, even for more artistic and free layouts…
I decided to design this first as a single page that could stand alone.
And then I designed the journaling portion to work with it. The balance of the design works either way! I get to share it as a single page or a double, depending on the situation. And, in fact, I’ve already shared it both ways for various reasons.
All you need are 6×12 page protectors. I use American Crafts.
Here is a closeup of the front and back of my journaled page for the top layout:
In this week’s episode for the members I show how to make this journaled tag page, along with my tips for easier journal strips.
You can watch this episode and many, many more videos right now when you sign up for your Paperclipping Membership! Click here to learn more!