Years Gone By

I have had a few requests lately to post in detail how I make my year in review layouts, seen here.

Well I am not sharing, na na na na na....he he.

No just kidding!

I can tell you that I was originally inspired by this layout by Jennifer Johner. I even scraplifted that layout exactly:

and it is still one of my very favorites. I was looking at it one day and though how cool it would be to keep the heart and change up the rest of the patterned paper squares with pictures, and the resulting layout came to be:


I got so many comments on that layout that I decided to go back through all of my years of digital photos and create layouts for each years scrapbook. (I organize my scrapbooks chronologically, thanks to this video by Becky Higgins)





So...getting back to my point.

To create the layouts I print my photos, all 93 pictures, 1 by 1 inches square. I use an old HP photo imaging software program I have to print them out, because the program lets you print photos in any size you want. It makes it so quick and easy that way! You could also use photoshop or PSE to resize and print your photos, but I prefer the easy method ;)

After printing out my photos, I cut them all up using my paper trimmer and start gluing. Using a 12 x 12 piece of black cardstock as the background, I randomly pick photos and glue them down.

11 photos per row.

I glue down the top 3 horizontal rows of photos and then the rest of the 3 vertical rows on the left hand side. The bottom row of 11 photos goes down nest. Then I start with the heart. (Really you could just start in one corner and just go from there, row by row, but I find my method to work best for me.)

Again using 1x 1 inch pieces of paper (this is a perfect use for scraps!). For the diagonal pieces of the heart I just cut a 1x1 piece in half and use both pieces along the edges.

Once the heart is done I continue adding photos where they are needed. You will end up having to cut 13 photos in half, or as I have done on a few of my layouts, cut 7 photos and use each half on opposite sides of the heart.



For the title you can use whatever you like. I have used American Crafts stickers, or thickers, and for my latest layout I used own printer and hand cut them out (this is a great way to save money and not have to buy letter stickers ;))




Hope this LONG explanation made sense, if not leave me a comment and I will gladly give better details! Thanks for all the nice comments :) I truly appreciate them!