Do you feel each spread/week should coordinate in colors? I'm not talking about your whole album; I mean the pages that face each other. For last week I have 1 page that is all about the last day of school activities, and I want to use a school related kit for it, BUT the opposite page is just daily stuff, and I want to use a different kit for that. I just don't know what to do. I could, of course, use the school themed kit for the whole thing, but where's the fun in that? What do you girls think? Would it make you twitch inside if your colors didn't work together on the same week's spread?
my thoughts? if you get the page done big points, if you upload it to be printed, bigger points if that page makes it into a book and is delivered to your house where friends and family oow and aw over it Priceless get 'er done is my motto and if that means not coordinating...then that's what happens...bhahah
Well, I'm kind of crazy about having the spread flow across the whole thing. What I would do in your case, however, is think of the last day of school page as an insert, and consider myself as just having one PL page that week. If I thought of it that way, I'd be OK with using different kits on each page.
I'm rather OCD about it... I would make it match... or do what Kimberly said and convince myself that they're not a spread but a one pager and insert... but if that were my situation, I'd probably actually make the last day a 6x12 insert and then spread the week over 2 pages... inserts for me don't need to match and I usually use themey kits to go with the theme of the insert and then I can see the week's spread surrounding it and not be so OCD about it... but that's totally just me and my need to match/coordinate everything, lol
I only do one page per week AND plan on printing my PL pages alongside/stuck in with my non-PL pages, so there is absolutely no color coordination going on here AND I LOVE IT.
I think I may do Heather's suggestion, but the only problem is that I don't have enough photos/stories to spread out over 2 pages. Now that I've said that, I WAS planning on turning the pics of Ari into a layout, so I could probably just spread them out on the 2nd page. I can still make a layout to put in her baby book. And if the insert doesn't match, it doesn't matter that much. At least I'll say that over and over till I've convinced myself it's true.
I try not to stress about it too much... have some very different pages next to each other in the printed photo books but mostly it just kinda works out that they aren't polar opposites of each other anyway... and I don't scrap super chronologically anyway so can tweak it if its too much...
Last year (when I actually DID my PL album, not just thought about it) I almost always made my whole spread match, but I did have a few weeks that were different - funnily enough it was the back to school week! Left side was school-theme/colors, right side was my sisters wedding so I used her wedding colors with a more elegant look. Initially I didn't love it, but now looking back at the album I'm totally cool with it. It tells the story.
In theory I like them to match, but I decided early on not to stress about it if my kids are wearing clothes that clash different days of the week and the journal cards aren't perfectly matched up. I make an effort to coordinate the pages, but have learned to be happy I'm keeping up. My fav PL pages are from Emily Merritt who manages to have gorgeous b/w pics with a perfect color scheme every week, but I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never be Emily Merritt.
^^This^^ I LOVE the way Emily's B&W photos look, but I HATE B&W photos in my own album. I can't for the life of me figure out what it is, except that I think that Emily has a real gift for using the perfect amount of color to make her photos really pop but without overwhelming her page. Or she's magic.
Em is definitely magic! I have to admit I feel relieved that other people actually struggle with matching spreads. I do a different color scheme every week but I can't seem to let go of the pages that face each matching. It's not a big deal when a two page spread is one week. I've had a couple of times this year where a week was only one page and I *still* had to make them match. Maybe next year.... Lol
I love to have a color scheme for the whole spread. I usually pick a dominant color, and one or two others for accents. Usually I get my colors from one or more of the pictures, and then I make it work for the whole spread - I generally love how it turns out.
I try to have my colors coordinate across the two page spread each week. Some weeks go better than others. My spreads end up being pretty photo heavy which leaves little "stuff" to coordinate though.
i coordinate facing pages but the rest, not so much. although, there are definitely some colors that seem to have made their presence known from week-to-week.
i use one kit for each two page spread and keep it consistent. i typically use the same background paper for each side as well.
Hm. My solution varies with how I compulsive I'm feeling at the time I'm putting pages together! I do like facing pages to at least have similar colors running through them in general, especially if it's supposed to be a cohesive book (like one of Anna Aspnes' books...*sigh* I envy her ability to keep everything so cohesive!). But if I'm working on individual pages, I don't care. However, I've never printed any of my pages except in 5x7 books from Snapfish. So I do know in that case I prefer the book to hang together in some way.