Make a Page Monday—A Hybrid Layout using 3 x 4 Cards as Inspiration

Make a Page Monday has been away for a while and today I’m happy to bring it back! Of course, there are no guarantees that next Monday will see another round, but that’s what makes life unpredictable and excitin! Not knowing when the next Make a Page Monday will appear. Right? Moving along…

STORY OF THE PAGE: My lovely daughter was home for a break between her J-Term and Spring Semester. On her second-to-last day, we took her out and about without any real agenda other than logging time in her presence. That’s really what this page is about. We are so grateful to have the relationship we do with this young woman.

DESIGN STUFF: This page started out as a bunch of 3 x 4 cards and one really cute photo.

I designed a set of card printables (and PNG + JPEG files) with a love theme last week. I printed them out using my laser printer onto laser-friendly cardstock and loved the resulting color. Remembering that I had a super adorable shot of Aidan and Dan in front of the I Like You store (a great local place to shop AND take a photo!) I decided to create a page using the cards as key elements. I cut them apart and combined them with some other products and voila, kind of an adorable page.

Key things repeat: The colors gold, pink and black repeat on this design. I love a limited palette which is why I decided to convert the photo to black and white. While the color of the shot was great, I wanted to force the issue, meaning, I didn’t want to match my colors to the photo. I use black and whites frequently for this very reason. Often, I’ll have a color palette in mind and come hell or high water, I’m going to use it because it makes me happy. I also repeated cutting some of the edges of my papers with my Fiskars Scallop Blade. It’s just a think I like to do. Scalloped edges also make me happy.

There’s also a common  usage of space. There are margins framing the core content, and there are margins of space around the photo and journal card that mirror each other, too. Here’s a tip: when you are going for a simple design, you have to really pay attention to stuff like space and how you’re placing it on the page. I did this page initially and when I stood back, the spacing was wrong and it just felt okay. Not great. I pulled everything up and rethought the spacing to a much better effect. I suppose I should have taken a shot of the first go round, but you live and you learn, right?

TECHNICAL SHIT: I added journaling to my card in Photoshop. I simply opened the JPEG file, created a custom text box using the Horizontal Text Tool (you click and drag the space in which you want the journaling contained, and then I started typing a bit. The font specs? Mrs. Eaves Roman, size 12, leading 21.

SENTIMENTAL SHIT: You know, my girl.

And that’s all she wrote. This page will go into our Family Album, Vol. 2.

You can snag my 3 x 4 cards today on sale and play with them in so many ways!

SUPPLIES:
Journal Cards (CZ Design)
Bazzill Cardstock
Close to My Heart (patterned paper, gold plastic embellishments)
Dear Lizzy (“Yay” chipboard tile)
Dimensional Adhesive (Scrapbook Adhesive by 3L)
Fiskars Scallop Edge Blade
Studio Calico (striped paper, gold washi tape)