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debikins
StuckOnPeas
PeaNut 65255 - 1/28/2003
Posts: 2068 Layouts: 313
Loc: Pacific Northwest
Count: 107 |  Posted: 3/7/2009 1:15:43 PM
Despite the fact I will attempt challenges and go out of my comfort zone, I noticed I fall back to my own "style" by default. What are the things you find yourself utilizing most often when you're creating layouts? Do you like: single photos or multiple photos; b&W or color photos; lots of embellishments or few; stamping; special effects; quotes; little or lots of journaling; people focused photos or places or things; bright or muted colors....and so on.
I have some unspoken criteria I seem to fall back on when I'm scrapping (even in my paper scrapping days)like:
1. I tend to want to use as many photos as I can (rarely do I have less than 3)
2. I want to document the date and place of the photos and I don't mix photos from different days
3. I like to match my background colors to the photo colors
4. I use colored photos almost 100% of the time
5. When I use embellishments I tend to not want them to overpower my photos-I want you to notice the photos not the embellishments
6. If I can find a catchy title or quote I will use it.
7. When I have enough photos, I like to make a double page layout with one page focusing on each kid.
8. I use photos with people/pets in them, rarely ones without.
9. I like my pages to be geometrically balanced.
10. I fuss over my pages way too long.
So what is your style? | |
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stefdesign
PhotoshoPEAholic
PeaNut 307816 - 4/2/2007
Posts: 9009 Layouts: 490
Loc: Beautiful Southern California
Count: 30 | Posted: 3/7/2009 8:15:27 PM
I haven't been very successful at defining my style, because I think I have several styles. One is very graphic- clean, advertising style. Well balanced, crisp lines. Often no drop shadows or depth. Sometimes these layouts have fun, poster-type effects.
Another is very 3D, and usually with at least one item extracted and realistic cast shadows added. I like my layouts to look more like shadow boxes than paper layouts, so I tend to want it very realistic & dimensional. The more I can create the illusion of space and depth, the happier I am!
I do love to experiment with filters, blending, photo effects, etc. I usually try something new with each layout I do. Generally my goal is to create something digitally that would be impossible traditionally. If I can make the viewer feel they are looking through a window, rather than looking at a page in an album, then I have been successful with my design.
I am a fanatic for good fontwork. It doesn't have to be exotic, fancy or wacky. In fact, my usual choice of headline fonts is very conservative. But I like well-thought out and clever titles, and done so that they enhance the design of the page. I am persnickity about heritage fonts matching the era of the photos. I am not such a great journaler. I love the stories, but find that I rarely leave enough room for a lot of journaling. I also do a lot of 2 page layouts. I used to do about 50% double pages, but I think that average has come down quite a bit. I usually scrap several photos. There's just too little time in life to waste it on single photos layouts. But that's just me! (And my latest layout has one photo on it!) |
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Ros135
BucketHead
PeaNut 404546 - 12/25/2008
Posts: 625 Layouts: 76
Loc: Australia
Count: 1 | Posted: 3/7/2009 9:58:22 PM
The only bit of 'style' I have is hanging in the wardrobe unworn!
I don't think I have a style - None of my layouts appear to have similarities - well, tell me if you think they do. I like to look at the fun side of my photos and I love wallowing in the emotional to me photos, I have a bit of a 'thing' for clip art - a lot can be said in an illustration. I don't tend to journal much on my layouts because they all go into an album and my journalling is added in my own hadwriting on the opposite page. (hybrid) I love journalling and would never have room for the photos. The size of a layout is important - I have to be able to picture where in an album it is to go, if it is have journalling on the same page then I cut the layout size accordingly. I have a lot of 6 x 4 layouts (not in my gallery) and these are mainly 'everyday' photos nobody would look at twice unless they were cropped, fiddled with and explained by journalling.
Another habit I have is trying to ensure I don't have an even number of things on the page. I have let only a few "evens" slip by. Don't ask me why co I don't know why I do it.
If I only have one photo I am using I often crop bits of it and use it alonside the original photo.
I don't care too much if a photo is blurry or damaged and I can't fix it. If it means soething to me or others I love, I use it.
Cards- when I am making cards I know who the recipient will be when I am making them. I have made cards willy nilly but they are never as nice as the ones I have made especially for someone. In particular I like an ink or sketched look to these.
I scrap for me, if I like it that is all that matters, if others like it as well then it is a bonus. |
Ros
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~ArtsyAngel~
PeaAddict
PeaNut 56599 - 11/22/2002
Posts: 1951 Layouts: 207
Loc: hang a left at the duck pond...
Count: 1 | Posted: 3/7/2009 10:23:43 PM
i don't think i have a style..do i? i feel like i am all over the page most of the time. i try lots of different things-and several of my pages don't look like the same person even did them.
maybe one day i will have a style, but it is probably going to be a while. |
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sroller
StuckOnPeas
PeaNut 243673 - 1/16/2006
Posts: 2696 Layouts: 554
Loc: Vancouver, WA
Count: 27 | Posted: 3/8/2009 11:23:15 AM
I think the style I gravitate more toward is a graphic style if left to my own imagination. I very rarely use more than a few embellishments on my pages. Just enough to provide a little interest. Unless I have the perfect paper in a kit, I usually try not to use kits much. I would rather have my photos be the focus of the page. If I see a sketch or LO in a magazine that I think I would like to scraplift--then I might go outside the graphic look to try to recreate that type of look for a change. It is hard for me to put a picture at an angle. I think they need to be straight. I have been trying to do a little more at angles and have liked some of the results. I mostly like to do multiple photos on a page although sometimes I only have one or the one photo is so wonderful that I want to really focus on it, then I will do a single photo page. I used to do more double page LOs but have done less of them lately. I am a chronological scrapper. I like to have all my pictures from a particular day together as well. So I don't do much mixing and matching of photos from different days. The only exception is for my heritage pages. I focus more on a clever title than journaling. Most of my journaling is only a couple of sentences to give an idea of the when and where. Very rarely do I journal a significant amount and/or anything very intimate. I scrap color pictures 99% of the time. Because what I want to save for my albums is family pictures, that is what I mostly focus on but I love taking nature pictures and vacation pictures so I do layouts of those. I don't always put them in my albums though. Just do them for fun. Colorwise--mostly muted colors. I am not much of a bright color person. |
Shannon
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busy.butterfly
StuckOnPeas
PeaNut 360936 - 2/5/2008
Posts: 2901 Layouts: 194
Loc: Vancouver, Canada
Count: 30 | Posted: 3/8/2009 1:52:34 PM
I have troubles defining my scrapping style too. Very occasionally I do some graphic/print ad style LO's but they aren't really my comfort zone. In general though I do have a process that loosely defines my style.
1. Like most my pictures define my LO.
2. Typically I'm an emotional scrapper, even if I have photos of an event I connect to it emotionally. I try to convey this emotion in my Lo.
3. Color is one of my prime ways of conveying the emotion. I may use the color picker to match colors in my photo but most of the time I pick complimentary colors.
4. I love to mix and match kits along with pp or elements that I create myself. My intention with my embellishments is to add to my story so hopefully that is what they do but maybe to someone else`s eye it might not make sense. But I like it.
5. I LOVE color photos so rarely will I use b&w or sepia photos.
6. I also am captivated by the power of language. I try to harness that power in my choice of title and in my journaling. Sometimes I use lots of journalling sometimes just a handful of words.
7. At one time I would have only scrapped people but since I started digi scrapping I have taken photos of objects, buildings and landscapes. But they are always tied back to how I feel about the objects and why they are important enough to me (or another loved one) to scrap.
8. I do single, double, 1 photo and multiple photo lo all the time. It doesn t matter to me.
9. I try to keep my LO balanced and over all pleasing to the eye. (or at least to my eye.) As long as I m happy and my family is pleased with the LO than I feel like I ve accomplished what I set out to do. (But I have to admit I like it when my fellow peas like my work too!)
10. I fuss way too long about my LOs too but I figure this is my hobby and my fun so if it takes me forever to finish a LO oh well. |
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***LynnG***
Volcanic Pea!
PeaNut 133619 - 2/28/2004
Posts: 9915 Layouts: 873
Loc: Far, far away | Posted: 3/8/2009 3:42:19 PM
That's a toughie.
Sometimes I feel guilty because I don't feel I have a definitive style and I always admire those that do!
I use color as my inspiration and if you look at my gallery it's probably the colorful nature of it that would strike you. (Some people say that because the light in NZ is very intense and the colors brighter so New Zealand artists etc use brighter, more intense colors!!)
My layouts tend to be:
1. Shabby, simple but relatively traditional
2. Blended with an off-centre design. |
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Aussiekat
PeaAddict
PeaNut 330399 - 8/1/2007
Posts: 1843 Layouts: 277
Loc: Virginia
Count: 26 | Posted: 3/9/2009 8:35:18 AM
ROFL - Kerry, I read your style list and just about checked everything off there for me, too! I think the only thing I can say is that 99% of the time I do 12x12 pages.
While I tend towards more graphic, clean lines, I do play around with more artsy stuff. Love 'fantasy' pages to look at, but that's not really me. I dabble in things that push me out of my comfort zone, sometimes successfully ... sometimes not LOL It's a learning process.
Sometimes I'll use a single photo ... sometimes 3 or more ... one page or two. Color could be dictated by the photos, the background paper, or a challenge. Photo's might be B&W, sepia, or color.
I'll combine designers or use one designer with multiple kits.
ROFL: Okay, here it is ... it's easier for me to define what my style is NOT! Not fantasy and not covered in a lot of embellishments; rarely use digi ribbon or buttons (but didn't when I paper scrapped, either). |
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HollyMcCaig
BucketHead
PeaNut 10025 - 1/26/2001
Posts: 862 Layouts: 73
Loc: St. Louis, MO | Posted: 3/9/2009 10:21:16 AM
i definitely like to mix up kits - i hate to use everything in one - i feel so limited. but that being said, i don't really know how to describe my style! |
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writermom1
Proudly sullying the community since 2003
PeaNut 114407 - 11/4/2003
Posts: 11860 Layouts: 64
Loc: At the intersection of Hooterville and Stars Hollow
 | Posted: 3/9/2009 10:49:08 AM
I like a very clean, strong "graphic" feel to my pages. If it "looks like an ad" I take that as a compliment - not a negative.
That said, there must be meaningful journaling. I like to tell a story "in my own words" and prefer to write in the first person in a "tone" that I hope my descendants who know/knew me will recognize as my own. |
As for not liking being called a scrapbooker...c'mon that's silly. That's like saying you'd rather be a "call girl" vs. "hooker". ~ 2boysandwill | |
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ShanB
PeaAddict
PeaNut 187882 - 1/27/2005
Posts: 1230 Layouts: 175
Loc: southern ontario
Count: 20 | Posted: 3/9/2009 12:55:39 PM
you all may think you don't have a "style" but I can say in most cases you are dead wrong. It may not have a name or anything you can pout a label on but that doesn't mean you don't have a style. I was always one who said the same thing.. I have no style. But yet people told me all the time that they could pick out my LO from the gallery without having to check the name. And I must say that I can do that with most of you too. When looking at the LO's for the challenges I know without even looking when I come across a LO by Stef or Heather*t or artsyangel or sroller or busy.butterfly.
Once I get to "know" some one I can usually pick out their LO's without looking at the names. So if you think you don't have a style think again. Sure in the challenges when we are sometimes forced out of our comfort zone the LO's may look different and are harder to recoginize some things never change, Stef's look really realistic, mine have large photos, heathers are soft and very eye catching in the graphic design.... if anyone has style its digi peas  |
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bcgal00
StuckOnPeas
PeaNut 139932 - 4/2/2004
Posts: 2444 Layouts: 130
Loc: Port Coquitlam, BC Canada
 | Posted: 3/9/2009 8:28:11 PM
I'm just getting started in digi scrapping so definitely have no style yet but if my digi follows my paper scrapping I would say:
1. More clean lines and simple embellishments rather than lots of elements and collage-type style.
2. I like to match color to the photo in some way,whether its paper or element and usually not pastel colors.
3. I've always been a 12x12 scrapper but am thinking about 8x8 for digi.. not sure yet tho.
4. I'm not a big journaler but that is mostly b/c I just am not sure how to tell the "story" of my LO. I am trying to work on that b/c I want my kids/grandkids to look at my LOs yrs from now and read the stories of our family.
5. I usually scrap 1-2 photos per LO. |
Rae
Scrapdribbles
My Photo Blog
MY GEAR: Canon 5DMKII, Canon 40D, Canon 50mm 1.8,85mm 1.8,100mm macro,10-22,24-70mm 2.8, Sigma 50-150mm 2.8, Sigma 70-300mm 4.5, Speedlite 430EX & 580EX
EDITING: Photoshop CS4 & Lightroom & CALIBRATED WITH SPYDER 3 PRO
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mandalee65
Biscraptual Pea
PeaNut 87311 - 5/21/2003
Posts: 6773 Layouts: 538
Loc: Tennessee
Count: 3 | Posted: 3/10/2009 8:07:47 AM
My "style" is all over the place. Sometimes it's clean, sometimes shabby. Sometimes I'm graphic, sometimes I'm very traditional (in the paper sense of the word). My moods change as quickly as the spring weather in Tennessee, and more than that - I just like to experiment. It's fun to stretch myself beyond what I am comfortable with.
That said, I do tend toward a clean & simple style (most of the time). Unless I have a very strong picture that tells the story itself, I will always add journaling. In fact, I'm so big on the journaling that if I will sometimes scrap two pages of the same thing - one with the really fabulous picture and another with the story behind it.
The one thing I can say for certain is that I hate "cutesy." I am NOT a cutesy person, and only on extremely rare occasions will I use elements that I think fall into the syrupy-sweet "cutesy" category. |
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thequeenofquirk
BucketHead
PeaNut 145483 - 5/5/2004
Posts: 926 Layouts: 133
Loc: england
Count: 1 | Posted: 3/10/2009 3:19:42 PM
i'm very moody with my scrapping.
it totally depends on what mood i'm in. sometimes i just wanna get a page done asap so i use as little as possible. other times, i just feel like using all my newest goodies and piling it all on!
i don't think i can pinpoint my style...
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hyperstarre
Garden Girl
PeaNut 186711 - 1/21/2005
Posts: 25300 Layouts: 905
Loc: san francisco
Count: 8 | Posted: 3/10/2009 6:03:42 PM
first of all, i love playing with color. i love mixing up different ones and coming up with fun color combos. i'm also drawn to brighter colors. i tend to use neutral backgrounds...i love mixing up different elements, kits, and patterns. i also tend to cluster things. and i like working with tiny photos |
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Tam2
StuckOnPeas
PeaNut 358347 - 1/22/2008
Posts: 2721 Layouts: 46
Count: 3 | Posted: 3/14/2009 5:20:35 PM
Currently, I have been scraplifting lots of cute lo's with the intention of adding the photos later. However, with all of the challenges that two peas has, I am doing several of pages that way. I usally use several pictures (although I am pre-cropping with PSE) & LOVE patterned paper instead of a lot of other embellishment. |
Tami
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Philippians 4:8
~~~The Queen of Quoting~~~
Happily scrapbooking since 1996! | |
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pezjunky
PeaNut
PeaNut 405752 - 1/2/2009
Posts: 270 Layouts: 37
Loc: Washington State
Count: 11 | Posted: 3/14/2009 8:48:54 PM
My scrapping style is fairly minimalist. I like a lot of "white space". Back when I did paper scrapping I did the same thing, and was a 'flat scrapper'. I didn't like to use lumpy embellishments. That has translated into a semi-graphic style. I do like to play with the photos though. I love changing colors and doing neat aging effects and things. That was one of the major draws for me to move into digital scrapping. Also, I like to use multiple photos. I don't like to do too many layouts with just 1 photo. |
Desiree
My 'Adventures in Photography' Blog
"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language." -Walt Disney
Canon Rebel XSi with kit lens
PSP X2 & PS CS4
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scrappystephanie
PeaNut
PeaNut 380027 - 6/18/2008
Posts: 13 Layouts: 0
Loc: Nicholasville, Ky
 | Posted: 3/15/2009 10:55:00 AM
My style:
1. I tend to have my papers/embellishments "match" my layouts (i.e. colors in photos).
2. I will use b&w, sephia, color photos. It really doesn't matter to me.
3. Don't like to use tons of photos in one layout. It just gets confusing to me.
4. I tend to work on my pages for WAY TOO LONG making sure they are absolutely perfect.
5. I have really only ever scrapped my daughter and niece and stuff that revolves around them. One of these days, I'll get around to doing scrapping about other thigns. Right now scrapping them is what makes me happy.
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Scrappystephanie
Stephanie
Mom to a 3yo drama Queen | |
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firegirl
BucketHead
PeaNut 152932 - 6/18/2004
Posts: 869 Layouts: 23
Loc: Houston, TX
| Posted: 3/16/2009 11:41:23 AM
Is laziness a style? Just kidding!! Now that I am doing digi scrapping, I am trying more styles. My paper scrapping is more clean and classic. I don't use too many embellishments. My digi scrapping is all over the place because I am trying out different techniques and I am loving it! I do have to say that when I am wanting to get a page done, like my 365, I go back to clean and simple. |
Wendy-Firefighter/fire chaplain married to a firefighter, mom to one very special little girl.
Adoption & Fire The musings of two firefighters and their journey of international adoption.
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