Template Tuesday: 3 is not a crowd

Hi there! If you have been around the TLP for a while you know October and November are quite full of events on top of real world things, so I’m glad to have eked out time to scrap a page myself over the weekend. Using Polly umyesh/Monica’s DYD Slow Scrap steps and a recipe made actually starting and some decisions fairly easy, which is always helpful in a time-crunch!

Single photo pages are not really my norm. As someone who’s fairly indecisive and uses photos to either tell a story or progression or rarely gets ‘the money shot’ in a photo session, and with the Slow Scrap steps calling for an odd number of photos, 3 photos was an easy decision so I set out looking for a template that I could make with that and the other steps.

At first glance, Dunia’s new Dear December template pack doesn’t suit that, but the amount of white space really gives so many possibilities. So my first step was duplicating and flipping the top photo spot to create a photo cluster of 3 with that bottom right Jingle all the Way template.

Christmas Templates | Dear December

Grouping my series of photos together, I have no clear focal photo at this point (and I don’t know which is my fave of the 2 on the right really). I quite like the bottom one with the golden bauble as a blur but I don’t want to add it in a vertical orientation and it doesn’t really fit the horizontal frame orientation if I rotate it. It looks a bit weird but cropped like this means I won’t have to squint so much in the future when I look back (and enlarging the photo spot wasn’t something I wanted to do at this point) so I figure I will cover that corner that just has the grey of the template layer spot showing through at the moment, otherwise I could just ‘tear’ off the photo corner.

Going through the steps, I brought in a wordart title next.

Dear December - Word Art by Joyce Paul

Joyce Paul’s new Dear December wordart set has so many more than is shown in the main store preview, most phrases are included in more than one font or style, but they’re all shown within that product listings extra gallery photos like this:

so I picked a phrase that fit with the joyful vibe and picked up on the christmas baubles theme. I auditioned both versions and then tucked this one in, thinking I would use it as a stamp and place something under the ‘holi’ part so there wouldn’t be any ‘trapped space’ (which is fairly universally accepted as feeling awkward in the graphic design world).

Spoiler: the stamping idea changes .

A few key elements also from Joyce Paul’s sticker pack in the same collection before I take up too much visual real estate with papers and mixed media. (Again this pack is bigger and has an additional preview so always check and appreciate the extra images in the store listings!)

Dear December - Stickers by Joyce Paul

I replaced a triangle tree shape with a tree sticker and for cohesion and to hide that photo corner, I added the baubles stickers and kept them large compared to the paper tree/triangle pieces on purpose to give them emphasis.

Now I needed to tick the polka dot and plaid paper steps off the Slow Scrap list and so I did a quick  ‘advanced’ store search for dots and checks and Christmas in the Paper Packs category. I found this kit that had a bluey grey green and small check pattern that would work with Dunia’s tree/triangle paper pieces in Merry Maker by Elif Sahin

Merry Maker Papers

I dropped in a stripe as well but decided it worked better horizontally with the horizontal flow of the template design

which gave me the idea to continue the stipes through the title with the cutout technique. I duplicated the stripe paper, moved it to the layer above the wordart title and right clicked and clipped the paper to it. To give it the cut-out look, I used these settings to get some inner shadowing so it looks like the wordart has been cut out of the white paper.

I rotated the tree sticker a it to let the ‘H’ show a bit more and then brought in some background papers to try. I added a few extra elements like sparkly scatters and flower stickers from Elif’s Merry Maker to finish off the requirements. Adding one flower (an odd number as required) quickly became 3 but instead of clustering them, I placed them to create a triangle around the photos and title. And to give the tree skeleton some colour and depth I used a light green cardstock Photoshop layer style from Mommyish’s MPM List Layer Styles   (after these are loaded, for something like this, they are so much quicker than pulling in a bunch of papers)

Then after adding a cool grey watercoloured style paper by NBK Design from artCrush #69 Paper Mix (it’s no.4 in the Options store menu) I thought that I was done… (I knew I wanted some more subtle pattern and something less stark and white than the template so auditioned a bunch before this and this pack is full of gorgeousness!)

but nope. I went thru my mixed media stash and found Just Jaime’s  Storyteller Dec 2020 Paint Tape & Flair.

Storyteller BYOC 2020 December - Paint, Tape & Flair

After bringing in the labels for some extra (functional) colour and the green of the tree skeleton I wanted to add more colour but just a bit. Elif’s splatters in green I reused a few times, rotating or flipping them so they weren’t identical or using a blend mode. Using ‘Screen’ made them look white-ish and soften a grey patch of the paper that was a bit too dark for me and was drawing attention away from the main areas of the layout.

I used Just Jaime’s paints to repeat the stripes in another triangle around the page as well as to bring some of the blue from her shirt into the page and repeat the pink tones of the carpet and the bottom element cluster.

Sometimes I want a premade paint cluster to be darker so just duplicating that will do the trick, but in this case 100% was really too much for the blue side of the paint so I added a layer mask and painted that bit out (shown in the overlapping blacky grey area) and just ‘multiplied’ the pink park of the paint.

And now here’s my final page but I could possibly have kept going – sometimes knowing when to stop is difficult! Lucky it was a slow scrap!

Thanks for staying to the end and here are my take-aways from today’s scrap:

  • The orientation of your photo, straight out of the camera, does not have to limit how you use it on the page. Rotate it how you want to and even if your photos don’t quite fit the frame, you can cover up edges with stickers or elements or use a torn frame judiciously
  • Three of anything in scrapbooking is not a crowd- it’s a photo series or cluster or using repetition for cohesiveness or a way to triangulate and frame something to guide the eye!
  • Cut-outs can be a fun way to highlight a title and patterned paper
  • Play with scale and resize your elements or use oversized ones for a whimsical look or emphasis
  • Mixed media (and the humble label!) can be a great way to add an extra touch of colour or to matt or bleed a photo out onto your page

I’m a creative who pulls inspiration from all corners of life—both the joyful highs and the real-life moments that punch you in the gut. Honestly, I don’t think I can pin down a single scrapbooking style for myself, so let’s just go with eclectic. My layouts really depend on my mindset. If I’m in a deep, cerebral mood, you’ll likely see something chaotic and messy. If I’m more relaxed, it tends to come out clean, simple, and structured.

My brain is usually running on several channels at once, so it’s completely normal for me to be working on a digital layout, dabbling in a hybrid project, and getting messy with art journaling or mixed media—all at the same time.

Here are a few of my go-to tools: Digital: Adobe Photoshop CC + my MacBook; Photos: Canon Rebel or iPhone; Hybrid: Cricut Joy + sewing machine; Art Journaling: watercolors, stencils, and artsticks

And when it comes to embellishments—digital or physical—I’m always reaching for messy threads, ribbons, and Polaroids. Always the Polaroids.

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