Scrapbooking Now

My favorite scrapbooking magazine is going away. Simple Scrapbooks published their last issue this month; ironic being in May - National Scrapbooking Month. I loved their magazine because the layouts were all approachable. Some were more detailed than others but nothing was beyond doing. They also recognized that scrapbookers like to tell a story and often with numerous photographs. And they recognized that many of us want to scrapbook about our husbands, our friends, our hobbies, our work, our travels and not just our children. I didn't discover this jewel among craft magazines until a couple of years ago, but I've really enjoyed it. Supposedly it will roll back into Creating Keepsakes magazine.

It was an article in the last issue of Simple Scrapbooks that inspired the layout above where I captured what is important to me in page design right now. I'm going for layouts where all the elements are grouped and there is more 'white' space. This is a particular challenge to me as I tend to cram as many photos on a page as possible. When I go through magazines or back through my own layouts, I find that I can size the photos much smaller, crop tighter, and still tell the story. I'm also choosing simplier papers but playing up embellishments with lots of variety grouped together on one area of the page. My scrapbooking tastes change frequently so this would be a fun topic to revisit in a couple of years - when I'm caught up. Ha!

Ingredients: Designer Paper and chipboard tag - Stampin' Up!
Brad - Oriental Trading
Chipboad letters - some from Basic Grey, others I'm not sure. Stickers from Basic Grey