Scrapbook Friday - Layout 8

I thank you all for your patients, here we are finally back on track with things. So far I have done 7 layouts from our trip to Canada and this will be number 8. Yep, and I am still working with the same 5 design paper sheets. There isn't much left of them, but still enough to do a few more.

These are some pictures from the "Basilica The Notre Dame of Montreal". I had pretty much only pictures from the inside of the church and one single one from the outside. After going through them back and forth I decided to cut down a few and eliminate some of the doubled ones as well. There were a few pictures I didn't want to cut since they showed off the architecture of the church. I don't have a template for this layout and to be honest, you not always need one. 

I decided to leave the four big pictures on the right layout and arrange the smaller sized ones on the left side. I did had to incorporate the one outside photo to. So how do we do this?

My idea was to mat the outside photo and built the other ones around it. 

I started by matting the outside picture with white cardstock. I also added a few picture pieces to fill in some gaps. Yes sometimes you don't need the whole picture instead a small portion of it will do to. This way I was able to create and even spacing around the matted picture. One the other side I tried to move to pictures together, then lined them up to create a square and finally ended up with the version you can see her:

I chose our Close To My Heart "Saphire" cardstock as the page base since I love how it works with the indoor colors. I know, you will ask where is the design paper in this layout....wait for it!
I didn't think a design paper would have worked here since the pictures are already a bit busy. But, I had a few small strips left and thought what if I cut my title out of them? So out came my Cricut and on I went. If you don't have a cutting machine or dies on hand to cut out letters, there is always another way to make this work. Maybe you have a nice letter stamp set? Or just write your own title. Use a pencil to pre-draw your letters before you color them. I chose two different design pieces for the title. "Basilica" is cut from a light blue paper and the rest is from the white paper with the little black hearts.

This is just the start of embellishing this page. More journaling and a few more little extras are coming soon. "Basilica" was cut at about 1" size and so it would fit right above the outdoor picture. The letters are slightly bigger than those of the rest of the title.

Here is a little tip on how to place your letters perfectly spaced and in line without making a big fuzz out of it. When you use a cutting machine your letters are cut on a sticky mat. First remove carefully the extra paper surrounding the letters. Do not rip this apart since we are going to use it as out template to place the letters on the page.

You will end up with pieces that look like this:

I placed the "Basilica negative" over the picture of the church. I made sure I had the same gap all along the top and that the word was centered. I used a little washi tape to hold it in place. Now I picked letter by letter from the sticky mat, adhered glue to the back and placed it in the spot were it was cut out from. Repeat with each letter and carefully remove the template ones you are done with all letters. I did the same with the rest of the title. This makes it for an easy and quick way to ensure straight and even spaced titles ;-)

At the end my page looks like this....with a few more details to come...

Next week I will show you a few ideas on how to create a preface page and a few more decorating tips. Thanks for joining me today and keep crafting.