What Matters Monday… Flow

Hello again… It’s Cyndi.  I’m back to give you this week’s What Matters Monday tip.  And what Matters this Monday is… flow.

The flow topic is really just a matter of preference, but it may still be a little foggy to some, so I’ll give my two cents.

When we digi-scrap, most of us focus on our one page layouts.  It’s easy to focus on one page, it’s a nice consolidated space to work with, let’s face it, they come pretty naturally.  But when I print my pages and actually put them in an album, I try to find pages that look good side by side and don’t clash in color or theme.  In other words, pages that flow together.  So when I create a 2 page layout, it’s just that much easier to place them in the album, knowing they fit together perfectly.

Take a look at the galleries of a couple of our Scrap Matters’ members…  Paige and Heidi (click on their name to go to their gallery).  They have plenty of 2 pagers to give you inspiration and ideas.

Now, how to get there…

I’ve found that when creating a 2 page layout, it’s easiest just to treat it as one big page.  One big 12×24 page (or whatever size you’re creating)  I add all my photos and papers and embellishments on the big 12×24 document, being mindful of the middle point and not to place important face pics that might be cut in half.  Many programs have guides you can turn on that will grid your page and help with placement of photos.  When I’m done creating, I flatten my page and open two NEW 12×12 documents.  I move (click and drag) the finished LO into one of the new 12×12 documents so that only the left side of the LO shows.  Then I repeat the process with the other side.  When I’m done, I have three open documents in my window.  One 12×24, one 12×12 of the left side of the LO and one 12×12 of the right side of the LO.   (Remember to flatten the 12×12 documents too.)  I then save and send the 12×12 documents separately to the printer. 

I also upload the 12×12 pages separately to the Scrap Matters gallery so that the details can be seen clearly.   But if you want to include the full 2 page LO in the details portion, just resize so that the longest side is around 800 pixels and save for web.  You then need to upload to a separate photo sharing site like Photobucket and include the IMG code in your description. 

Is this all perfectly confusing now?!?!  If you need further help, feel free to PM me and I’ll try to answer any questions I wasn’t clear on here.

Thanks for reading today!  I love seeing those LOs!!

Cyndi

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under ScrapMatters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.