Make it Focal - Part 7 - Sweet Spot

While the center of the page draws a fair amount of attention, it can also be a bit boring. A more interesting place for your focal photo is the "sweet spot".  Photographers may be familiar with the "rule of thirds".  Applying this rule to your scrapbook page allows you to find the "sweet spot" for placing a focal photo.

The basic idea is this.  Draw two imaginary horizontal lines dividing your paper into 3rds.  Do the same with vertical lines dividing your paper into 3rds the other way.  To place a photo on the "sweet spot" you would place it where these lines fall.  It is especially effective if you place it where two lines intersect, thus placing it in the "sweet spot" both directions.  Here's an example of this.

While the photo of the pink fish falls a bit to the left of the "sweet spot", the brightest part and face of the fish fall almost directly on it.  That placement along with the bright color of the fish, really help pull the eye to it!

Now that we've discussed several ways of creating a focal point, I suggest you take some time to look at pages you've completed.  I suspect you will find that those you like the best use several of these techniques to mark the focal point -- whether you were aware you were doing that or not.  I also suspect that if you examine pages you have never been as happy with, you will discover several where your focal point is not as clear as it could be.  You may find you can use these focal point tips to fix them so you're happier with them!

Cards using your Silhouette or other Die Cut Machine

I LOVE my Silhouette.  It makes great card focals and scrapbook embellishments.  Here's an example of a card I made.

The background was pieced from papers from the DCWV All Dressed Up Matstack.  The butterfly and sentiment were cut on my Silhouette.  The butterfly was cut with black and then backed with pink paper.

My Silhouette can create much more elaborate cards, too.  This card was based on a pattern made by Monica - http://www.fam-bjork.se/monicas-hobbysida/en_index.html  

The possibilities are endless!

More Cards from Scraps

Today's cards are more examples of making cards from the leftover scraps from a scrapbook page (see Cards from Scrapbooking).  The first one uses a piece of striped paper and pairs it with the coordinating green paper and blue cardstock to create a quick and easy card.  The flowers are cut using my Big Shot and a Provocraft die.

The second card makes uses of some paper scraps which I paired with purple ribbon, a teacup printed on vellum paper, and a "Dazzles" greeting.

Both the greeting and teacup were from Paper Wishes.

By the Numbers - 6 photos

With six pictures, I often crop them into some sort of collage.  Here's an example of that.

In this layout, I didn't do the collage thing, but I printed several pictures small enough so they were more like embellishments.

You may notice that I cut around the small photos with special-edged scissors so they almost look like stamps. This helps create the feel of "embellishment".