Hi everyone and Happy New Year's Eve! It's Amy here today with a fun "Year in Review" project using October Afternoon's 12x12" 3x3" Daily Flash divided page protectors. With it's 16 divided squares, this page protector is the perfect vehicle for creating a Year in Review layout.
The way I started my page was deciding how I would approach the "layout". I ultimately decided to use 12 of the 3x3" boxes as months. One thing that I knew I wanted to do, was to create my year, and have the photos be the star of the show. So, I decided on the neutral palette of cream and black for my papers (Black paper from Milk Money, called "Science"), stickers. Since there are an even number of boxes in the page protector it didn't lend itself to having the year/title across the middle, so I opted to have it divide the page diagonally. Then I decided that I wanted my month images surround the numbers in "2013" reading from left to right, as a progression of the year. I used the black and cream mini market stickers from Silent Night to label my photos with their correspsonding months. I kept the spacing consistent with all the months, but varied their placement on the photos, making sure that they didn't imprede on the image itself.
For the title, originally I had blocked out pieces of paper and added a layer of cardstock with the numbers, but then when it came to the back of the page, I then had to do something additionally to the backs of those pieces. Then I decided what if I just used my die cutting maching to make extra larde 3" numbers and leave the area surrounding the numbers, empty. It worked out great and ultimately gives the eye space to "breathe" amongst so much activity in the pictures.
That brings us to the back of the insert/layout.
Again, I wanted the photos to visually tell the story on the front of my page, but I also wanted to tell a written story for each of the months, since of course one images can't entirely tell the story of an entire month. So I used the back of the insterts to tell a mini story about what went on in each month, or specifically the events surrounding the image that I used for the month. For these inserts, I used some paper from last year's Make it Merry mini books and cut the pages into 3" squares. I scanned that image and used it as a template in my printing to create all of my journaling. (For another tutorial on how to create this type of journaling see this blog post here).
I thought about adding washi tape, buttons or other embellishements for this side of the page, then ultimately opted to simply leave it. The simplicity of the words and how they coordinate with the images on the other side of the insert was enough for me with this layout.
Here are some closer images of what I created.
I hope you enjoyed learning how to use October Afternoon's 12" 3x3" divided page protectors for creating a Year in review page for your memory keeping today! Thank you so much for joining me today, and all of us at October Afterrnoon, throughout 2013! Have a Happy and safe New Year!
~Amy