Where To Start...When You Are New?

Hi All! 

Casey here a new member of the Blog Team here at SPS.  I am really excited to be here and look forward to sharing various thoughts, tips, and goodies with you.  So let's get started...

When I first started scrapping back in 2009 I knew nothing about scrapping or design.  I simply knew that I loved taking photos, I had a brand new baby, and I wanted to preserve our family memories.  So through the magic of the Internet I found digital scrapping.  I had no natural talent or training period so this new hobby was a bit daunting.   So in the back of my mind I thought that this hobby would probably not last...and yet here we are in 2011 and I am more addicted than ever.  So as I thought about a topic for today's post I wondered what would I have wanted to read as a new scrapper...what would have helped me get a good start.  As I do random posts here I will discuss the concepts held in the acronym ECBARF.  You can read an awesome series of articles at The Daily Digi that covers in great depth this topic as well...

The letters stand for Emphasis, Contrast, Balance, Alignment, Repetition, and Flow.  When applied in scrapping each one of these principles can help improve your designs.  So we will tackle the first letter E or Emphasis in this post.  When I sit down to do a layout I normally have the goal of telling a story...how I relate that story is the fun part...what do I want to emphasize in order to really make the layout pop and make my story come alive?  Normally I emphasize either my photos, title, or journaling...the three main components of most layouts.  Take a look at these example layouts made with SPS digital kits.  And read more about how to add emphasis at the Daily Digi.

Title Emphasis--Notice how sidsymarie uses a large title and bold color to allow her title to pop against the other darker colors of her layout!  And don't forget to look at that little cutie too;)

Journaling Emphasis--Take a look at how lnewhouse focuses your attention to the journaling on this layout.  Her use of the adorable red heart and wrapped text is wonderful.  By the way her photos are WOW too!

Photo Emphasis--Penny's layout is an awesome example of how to emphasize your photo(s). Your eye is immediately drawn to her large photo and the simple embellishments and journaling make this layout beautiful.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and be on the look out for the next post where we will talk about C...Contrast.  Until then happy scrapping!