I’ve almost scrapbooked all of the photos I printed from December, and what I have left I’m either not inspired to scrap or just not ready to yet. My recycle bucket is full of little Christmas-colored scraps. I’m feeling anxious to use different colors and focus on different topics. I think, in other words, I’m just about finished with scrapping Christmas for now.

Since I’ll not likely be getting into my Christmas scrapping supplies for a while, I like to put it all away in an organized fashion, so that in December if I have some scrapping time, I’ll be ready to go. I do this by:

• Making notes for the photos I’m not going to scrapbook right now. This January (remember, I’m ignoring the fact that is February!) these are mostly just photos of my own Christmas. I have some of the journaling written, but I’m not feeling ready to scrapbook them yet. So I made some notes about what I want to do with them, and tucked them away. I’m hoping I’ll make these layouts when December rolls around again, and having a little refresher about my ideas (and a note about where I saved the journaling!) will help.
• Doing a brutal purge. I thought I did this last year, but I was surprised when I opened my Christmas drawer and found it brimming with stuff. It’s all good stuff—but it’s the “all” that becomes overwhelming. Even if a paper is useful and my style, this brutal purge I’m going to force myself to also acknowledge this question: Yes, but will I ever really use it?
• Photographing and processing all of the layouts I made in January. (I haven’t shared all of them on my blog. I think what I didn’t share I’m going to use for a blog post in December. Stay tuned!) I HATE photographing layouts. It just doesn’t seem to matter what I try, I can never get the angle right. It doesn’t help that I need to take my camera in, because it doesn’t seem to be able to get the color balance correct. But I’ve been trying to do this—keep a digital record of the paper layouts I make—for a couple of years now, and I find it to be so helpful. Partly because sometimes I’m not sure whether or not I actually made a layout with a set of pictures (lol…please tell me I’m not the only one who does this!) but also as inspiration for when I’m feeling stuck. It helps me get my mojo back to just look at layouts I’ve made.

I tend to do a ton of two-page layouts when I’m scrapbooking Christmas. I guess in theory I could just pick one photo that represents all of Christmas day…but there are always so many of them. Plus, I’ve learned from looking back at photos from my childhood Christmases that a lot of times, it’s not just the people in the forefront that give the photos meaning. It’s also the little details in the background.  So I like to include quite a few pics on Christmas layouts—and thus, two pagers!

This is the one I made for Nathan (please note that in real life, the lines actually meet up correctly and the color of the background is the same!):

So today I’m sharing a list of tips for making two-page scrapbook layouts that feel cohesive.

1. Think of the layout as 12x24. Literally: lay the two background sheets together, and then start designing. The layout will feel more cohesive and balanced this way, more so than if you design each half of the page separately. 
2. Create a visual triangle with text items. In theory, most pages have two text items: the title and the journaling. There can also be embellishments with text (these tend to be my favorites!) but there is another corner to the triangle that sometimes gets overlooked, but can give your layout a sense of balance, and that is the date. It’s a little thing, but the date can be a good spot for some cute embellishments, a little extra note, or your own handwriting. It can reinforce the design by repeating the font you used in the journaling or an embellishment from the title. (Lots of my layouts have the subject’s first initial with the date, using the same lettering type I used on the title.) By turning the date into a small embellishment, you give your layout three pieces of text—and then when you arrange them in a triangle, they both lead the eye through the layout and help it feel balanced.
3. Cross the middle line with at least one thing. Sometimes I do this with a photo, especially if I’m using one that has a lot of white space on one side or the other. Usually I do this with border strips of some sort. On today’s layout, the striped paper strips and the little strip with pine trees each cross the middle line. This makes the layout feel more like one piece, even when you put it in a sheet protector.
4. Repeat embellishments on both sides. For me, this is easiest to do if I’m using the same brand of embellishments. In this layout, I used a bunch of Elle’s Studio product, some on each side. The consistency in color and feel of the embellishments helps the two sides “read” as one large piece.
5. Repeat one design element, even if it’s switched up a little bit. Here, the things I repeated were the line with two 2x3 photos (even though it from vertical to horizontal) and the red border on a major element (the journaling on the left, the focal-point photo on the right).

And with that, Christmas 2015 is all wrapped up! Are you finished with scrapbooking Christmas? What are you moving on to next?

Happy scrapping!