Help with minimilist pages... please!
 

I'm working on a Christmas album of photos from the 1950's to the early 2000's. So far I have the cover and dedication page complete and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do from here. I have lots of pretty small photos, many in black&white, and I really want the focus to be on the photos. I'm going to print them out as an Adorama lay-flat book, so I can design the two-page spreads together. The bleed will be on the outside of the two-page spread, and there won't be a seam (just a crease) between each pair of pages. I have the photos roughly grouped by decade and I was thinking of putting the title in the middle of the 2-page spread with the photos surrounding the title. I'd like to add a few scrappy touches to the page, but nothing that will overwhelm the photos. This is what I have so far...

http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/a...ll/cover-1.jpg

http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/a...Pages1-2-1.jpg

I'd love suggestions for how to continue and links to any multi-photo, minimilist-type pages you've done. This is not my usual style!

Thank you!

I struggle with minimalist pages as well. They aren't my style and usually take me five times as long as my busy, clustery pages. But, I think Janet's templates are perfect for this kind of thing. The set she released this weekend is HUGE and full of awesome templates:
https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/s...091ade6cb4.jpg

Good luck with your album! I like what you have so far. :)

i am not that good at minimalistic pages (i wish i were!) - but i think using some of janet's templates would work well - or at least looking at her completed pages - she doesn't use too many elements and the pictures take center stage and they are SO CUTE!


eta: lydia beat me to the punch is suggesting janet's templates LOL ...

I totally agree that Janet's templates are great for simple, photo-focused pages! I have a bunch in my stash already, but I think that templates are too structured for what I'm trying to do. This what I have done so far for the next two pages. I'd like to try grouping the photos by year or by subject. For now, I'm just putting all the photos on the canvas and I'll arrange them later. I may tuck a few embellishments in with each photo cluster, and I'd like to dress up the title a bit more, but I think that's about all the decorating I'd like to do on the pages.

http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/a...l/Pages3-4.jpg

Another vote for using Janet's pages! Also, Liz (Paislee Press) had this brilliant idea for laying a full-bleed photo AND a layout in one spread so it looks cohesive. You could do this and save on scrapping time :)

http://paisleepress.com/2010/04/blue...into-an-album/

I love that idea! Unfortunately, these are really old, really small photos. The largest is (maybe) three inches, so there's no way that I'd be able to use one full-bleed on one page of the album. Besides, I have lots of photos and only have 14 pages to put them on, so I wouldn't want to make the photos really big even if I could.

Now that I've been working on it for a while, I think I can express the look I'm going for better. I'm looking to mimic the look of the old scrapbooks that just have photos and captions, but I want to add just a bit of "scrappiness" to it. Once I get the first spread done, I think the others will fall into place pretty quickly.

When I worked for Creating Keepsakes, I was assigned to do a book for collaboration with the Alzheimer's Association as an example for caregivers. (When I was asked to do it, they didn't even realize my dad had just passed away from that disease.)

This was paper scrapping, of course, but, I scrapped photos of my dad's life and had to use only the very minimal supplies they gave me. I mostly just used photo corners and strips of paper plus a ribbon here and there. I also did some blocking.

Are you journaling much?

I'm probably not going to do much journaling on each page. I'm planning to do an "introduction" page that will be opposite the dedication page and I'll do some journaling on that one. I'll probably just put captions with the photo groups.

This is the current version of the first set of pages.
http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Pages3-4b.jpg

This is the "final" version of the first set of pages. I'm planning to use a similar setup for all the pages, so it should (hopefully) start to go more quickly. Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions!

http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/a...ages3-4c-1.jpg

that looks awesome! this will be such a wonderful, special book !

That looks awesome, Kate! I love how you framed the layouts in that striped paper! :)