Patterning and Spacing in Your Scrapbooks

How can you arrange your scrapbook page to best show off your mementos and embellishments? You can place everything in the center of your page, place a single focus item in the center, or divide the page into sections adding items to each section. You may also choose to lay the items out in a standard recipe or calendar layout.

Shapes also make interesting placement patterns. Common shapes include circles, squares, hearts, and stars. However, you can also place items in object patterns such as mountains, trains, or Christmas trees.

The shape you choose for your scrapbook will depend entirely on your theme. For instance, a logical shape for a wedding or Valentines Day scrapbook is a heart. A nice shape for a Christmas scrapbook is a Christmas tree. You might make a cake pattern for you niece the pastry cook. Let your imagination and creativity be your guide.

Various ready made patterning templates are available on the market.

Spacing is a difficult matter. There is a fine line between having a balanced scrapbook page and a gaudy mess. If items are too closely spaced your reader will feel overwhelmed. If your items are spaced to far apart your viewer will feel short changed.

Look at your page.
Close your eyes.
Open them again.
Does your page look cluttered?
Does your page have more photographs than background?
Are your embellishments drawing the focus away from your mementos?

Then, you need to simplify your page a bit and increase the spacing between objects. Remember you can always add more pages.

Is your page bare?
Is your page uninteresting and colorless?

Then, think about adding some more mementos and colorful embellishments. In this way, you can decrease the spacing between objects making your page more energetic.

Mia LaCron is the founder of 101-scrapbooking-tidbits.info - http://www.101-scrapbooking-tidbits.info - devoted to helping individuals record, store, and preserve their most cherished memories via the art of scrapbooking.