Welcome to another edition of Why it Works, where we share and highlight a page from an awesome scrapper in our gallery that utilizes a really cool technique, a design trick, a photography tip, journaling ideas or any number of other things to get you scrapping outside your comfort zone. We hope to share and inspire you to try something new, revisit an old technique you may have forgotten about, or maybe just approach that blank canvas in a new way. So, here are some of the things you can do to be involved in this thread if you want to be. 1. Ohhh and Ahhh over the awesome layout or project that has been highlighted and head over to the gallery and show the scrapper some love. 2. Learn something new from the tip or tutorial. It's all about becoming better at our craft! 3. Try the technique yourself and post it in this thread for us to see. 4. Show off other pages from the gallery that use the technique as well. Be sure to link them so we can give them the love they deserve! 5. Ask questions about the technique that you may have or tell us how you may do it differently. There are many ways to do these things and this thread is all about the learning! *note: this is not to be a critique of the page/project in any way, it's all about learning to emulate the awesome technique highlighted. Any negative comments about the highlighted page will be deleted.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am a gal that even though I love the "Clean and Simple" I struggle to pull it off. I have been studying layouts trying to see how I can learn from these amazing C&S (Clean & Simple) scrappers. The one thing that first was one of those thing that surprise you but they are not really a surprise was the background color. C&S like white backgrounds (or really really pale/light). Here I pulled 4 pages that I found that are my goal in terms of what I would love my page to look like (a girl can dream, ok?). From left to right, top to bottom: Two Years by @Meredith78 , Now by @IntenseMagic , Travelogue by @jendcnguyen , Weekend in Venice by @sucali , Le Temps Passe by @KarenB and Senior Year by @EHStudios . What is the one thing you notice that they have in common? A WHITE BACKGROUND! Why does it work, white allows your viewer to "rest" their eye and concentrate in what it's important. If you also notice most of this pages follow the "Why it Works | The Graphic Magazine Look" that Jenn presented in July. Think of the white background as your white canvas to start a page, think of allowing yourself to just keep it clean and simple, remember to let your viewer space to "breath and rest". The white background is your starting stepping stone where to build this page. At the same time, minimize your color palette so that your white background makes every color you do use POP from the page. Trust me if this is not your usual it might be a bit hard but at the end you will have a page that might become one of your favorites! Of course I will link you to some amazing white paper packs. It's funny because I have tons of black paper packs but not many white ones. There are way more white paper packs in the store, these ones are the ones that have less texture because I think this technique benefits from a really simplistic approach. Here is mine: I used the following kits: Now tell me, do you love using white papers as backgrounds? Any particular favorite paper that you use? Let us see your white background pages!
I love a white background - your examples are gorgeous! I especially like using white for winter and vintage layouts - and not necessarily for clean and simple layouts ;-)
Great post, @Dalis!! I love a great white background!! I love PRD's Fancy Whites and Danyale's Shades of White that you featured. And I also love the whites in this one by Amy Wolff:
Me too! I adore a white background - but I also love my elements- so I tend to put quite a few on and lean a little away from the clean, minimal style bc of that! So I think I'm a little more like Lynn G - a white background scrapper but not necessarily clean and simple. I love your sample pages and all the white paper packs you linked us up too! YUM!
I adore using white backgrounds. BUT I also love using Kraft. If you use stamps and paints a lot they will just pop off the page! Love that if you use a pattern paper at the top and bottoms they pop more! messy threads look sooooo good on white papers! They way those pretty foliage type of elements looks on a white background! I love when designers do white texture paper! As you see here you can make the creases the designer has and staple it like I did.
Thank you ladies for the samples, the additional products and you insights! @IntenseMagic @Sokee @jenn mccabe
Well, considering I have 4 of the White packs you listed.... I am very eclectic. I love my whites and other solid colors, but I also love crazy, wild color backgrounds too. Isn't great that we can do it all as our mood directs us?
I had to go back through my pages...I use white more often than I thought I did LOL!! I also seem to use neutral colors a LOT, but not a lot of clean and simple. I never feel like I have the "right" photos for clean and simple if that make sense? Now I need to add those papers to my wish list so I can buy them later!
I have to agree - white always works! i love white backgrounds (and i have been known to create entirely white on white (WoW) pages) but going back thru my gallery, apparently i dont use it as much as i thought these days. (WoW) It makes me feel like a 'proper' scrapper (read: paper scrapper!) though because i think it takes me back to the days of post-bound albums with a white piece of paper or cardstock in every sleeve (and ironically i'd hate them but would generally start my page on them anyway) but like you said, Dalis, i do love that a white backgrounds shows off and goes with ANY other colour; and that given i tend to blow out (over expose) the sky in most of my photos (most of the time on purpose ) it is easy to blend landscape shots into for me, like this page: (blown out skies, easy blends) (my digi versions of a proper paper page) i also really love 'default white' as my go-to backdrops for 'don't think about it - just drag your photos and cards and whatnot and get it done' pocket pages - it does just make them feel clean with the defined edges and kinda simple and also helps keep the album coordinated but i think any go-to white paper pack would have the same effect. I don't think you can go wrong starting with white paper. (clean edges)
What do you get if you cross a frog and a dog? .... wait for it... ..... ....... ....... .................. ... (A croaker spaniel!)*
