One of the best "scrapbooking secrets" I can share with you is the wisdom of using 2 page spreads when telling a story. I mostly scrap one page at a time and that works well for me. Often I am presenting one event or memory per page and I just try to make the opposing layout in my album one that will complement the facing page. However, there is something incredibly powerful about using the full spread of both scrapbook pages in an album as the canvas for sharing a special event, a vacation, or a visual story of some type. I especially love 2 page spreads for the way they can represent a timeline of events.
Consider this "year in review" layout I recently did. These are random pictures from the year 2000 of my family and a recounting of the highlights of the year.
Yin Designs Template 102
Fonts are Fontologie Textura and Century Gothic
Ribbons by Anne Dejong
Journaling:
January - Trip to Legoland and Disneyland. Riley became a Sunbeam.
February – Jeff and Riley went to “Ariel on Ice”. Started massive remodeling project in basement. Everything broke (water main, furnace, etc.) and had to be replaced!
March – Jeff and Katie celebrated 9th wedding anniversary. Katie turned 31. Basement project finished.
April – Jeff traveled to Washington D.C. and Japan and was gone most of the month.
May – Riley had tubes put in her ears (again). Jeff traveled to New York.
June - Alex’s school test results show that he reads at high school level or higher. Katie started her first website. Jeff turned 32.
July – Went fishing as a family. Alex graduated from Kindergarten. Katie attended a week long university course on autism.
August – Jeff signed on to be a volunteer at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Alex started 1st grade at the Pingree School.
September – Riley turned 4 years old and started preschool at EHP (same building as Alex). Alex shopped online and designed a Barbie for Riley (on his own). We purchased the Barbie so he could give it to her.
October – Alex turned 7 years old. Riley was Cinderella for Halloween and Katie was her “Berry Godmother”. Alex dressed up as Scooby Doo.
November – Katie joined the “Rainmoms Committee”. We ate 2 Thanksgiving dinners. We all got colds!
December – Jeff got accepted to Westminster College to pursue his MBA degree. Christmas!
2 page templates make this type of scrapbooking really easy. Some of my favorite 2 page spread template designs come from Janet Phillips and Yin Designs. Janet also has a VERY useful blog post on the Daily Digi about how to create 2 page layouts and also how to print them. You can also read my Tuesday Tutorial on Ali Edwards blog if you want some ideas on how to stretch a template into a 2 page spread.
I think it's hard to beat the visual impact of using a 2 page spread! Here are some of my favorite spread layouts. Each layout is linked to the original blog post if you want to see the full credits and details.
