PL TimeWarp & What To Do With Your Paper Stash Once You Go Digital

Luccccccy, you gotta 'lotta catching up to do!

I have, ooooh, about 25 weeks that I didn't finish from my photo album last year.  I really, really wanna get that bad boy finished and printed, so I'm planning on kind of working backwards and completing the most recent PL weeks first (since the details are the freshest in my mind. Aaaaand because I LOVE getting to relive the holidays.)  So, let's begin around November, shall we?

Since I've been neglecting the giant hoard of scrapbook paper that I have in my office after switching to digital, I experimented with scanning to see if I could use it digitally.  I cut a piece of Doodlebug Designs Happy Harvest paper down to about 8x8, and scanned it on the fine picture setting on my Canon scanner.  When used at full size, the scanned result looked a little grainy (not anything like digital paper you can buy), but when shrunken down for a 3x4 card, I think it looks pretty dang good!

 I made the title card just by using the scanned paper and the circle tool in Elements.  I pulled the blue out of one of the leaves in the paper to fill the circle.  The font is Ostrich Sans.  Flatten that baby, add the text, flatten again, and you've got a custom title card.

I also made the card on the bottom right (The one that says "Dada? Da-dee?")  I scanned coordinating patterned paper, and used it to add a washi like strip to the bottom.  Just a little pop of color with the rectangle tool.

The plaid paper was also a scan from that same Happy Harvest line.  The old me would have had that colorful crap all over the whole page.  The new me is using it in moderation to add a little bit of color and pattern here and there.  I think the way to make your scrapbook look modern and fresh is finding a happy medium with your photos and the amount of embellishments.

**TIPS**

- If you're having trouble figuring out where to put colorful elements in your layouts, thing about the triangle rule of design.  Placing eye catching elements in a triangle shape will be more visually dynamic, and help the eye move across your pages.  It also helps kind of balance things out.

-The bottom photo includes a photo of the members of a book club I am in, and I create my scrapbooks with the intention of them being treasured possessions for YEARS to come.  I like to label the photo like this with each person's name, (which I blurred out for privacy) so I can remember everyone 10, 20, 30 years down the line.