"High Speed Happiness" and Picking Out Papers

Since this week brings a new set of downloadable sketches (available tomorrow) I made a new layout based on a sketch from an older set of downloads.

The layout today is from the September 2015 Travel mini-bundle. The bundle is available to purchase here: https://scrapbookgeneration.com/mini-bundle-september-2015…/

You can check out all the downloads here: https://scrapbookgeneration.com/sg-exclusives/downloads/

I picked this sketch in particular because I loved that it had a large 10 x 5” photo on it. When I designed the sketch I thought a larger photo would be perfect for a travel layout. I envisioned using a panoramic style of photo of some beautiful scenery.

While I did design this sketch with travel in mind, I found myself drawn to that 10 x 5” photo for a set of photos I had of Drew and Jackson riding a dragon rollercoaster/ride at our town carnival. I wanted to use that large photo to highlight the action and their smiling faces. That’s one of the things that I love most about sketches, they may have a specific theme, but you can always adapt them to any theme you want.

Typically, when I scrapbook, I take the easy approach when it comes to picking out papers and embellishments by using a collection. However, that’s not always doable. In this case I couldn’t find anything that had the colors and patterns I had in mind all in one collection. This is when I start mixing and matching. The most important thing to me when I start mixing papers (or really, using any set of papers) is finding the right colors that are going to highlight my photos and the subjects in them.

There is a lot going on in my photos between the dragon and all those kids. To help keep my kids center stage I found papers that matched their clothes, gray for Jackson and blue for Drew, to help them stand out. If they match the colors of the layout, they are going to stand out. It’s really that simple.

What do you look for when picking out the colors and papers for your layouts?