Using Fall Colors in Your Family Layouts

Brown, orange, and green are colors that are usually seen together on fall layouts and projects, but they aren't just for fall.  In working with my summer photos recently, I noticed that these colors coordinated very well with the colors in my family photos. 

At the beginning of this year, I decided to create a "One Little Word" book, a concept that Ali Edwards came up with back in 2006.  It involves choosing a word in January that you will reflect upon all year; and each month, you create a layout about how that word has impacted your life.  I chose the word "little," and in this layout, I reflect on how one "little guy" in the family brought us all together in June.

Since I'm using a mini album for this project, keeping the layouts simple and the color scheme unified is essential to me, and, as I said earlier, these colors just seem to work well with all of my photos.  The strips of brown and orange cardstock, plus a few scraps of patterned paper that I had in my stash, provided just the right background for these pages.  For embellishments, I used a mix of green buttons and punched borders that I made with my EK Success Chain Edger Punch .  (This is a great punch to use on masculine layouts!)  I typed my journaling for this layout, because I had a lot to say.  Otherwise I would have used my usual handwritten journaling.  As you will see in my next layout, adding white to this color combination brightened up the layouts.  When you are working with a dark color like brown, this can be very striking too.

Family layouts don't always need to include pictures of people.  Such is the case with the page below, which features some cupcake decorations that I made with my children using my Cricut Cake Machine.  The patterned paper circles, punched from scraps of coordinating paper, brightened up the dark brown background paper - as did the addition of some aqua paper.  I added a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the edges of my photo to make it pop a little.

Of course, let's not forget that you most certainly CAN use fall colors in your Thanksgiving layouts too.  For my Thanksgiving 2011 layout, I started with a kraft cardstock background.  Then I cut blocks of patterned paper, as well as decorative borders, and added them to the page.  The large leaf made a perfect spot for my subtitle, and smaller leaves that I had in my stash of punched pieces carried the leaf motif over to the right page.  This was also the first time that I tried wooden buttons, and I found that I like them a lot.  A few strips of coordinating Washi tape completed the design nicely.

Here is how to make the large leaf on the left page of my Thanksgiving layout:

1. 1.  Adhere strips of paper to a piece of cardstock, making sure that none of the edges are sticking up.
2. 2.  Using a Sizzix Big Shot, cut a large leaf shape from the layered piece of cardstock.
3. 3.  Emboss circles/dots, using an embossing folder and your die-cut machine.
4. 4.  Add a rub-on subtitle.

I hope I've given you some ideas for using fall colors in your family layouts this year, and I hope I've shown you how to use them not only with your fall photos, but also with other photos that you might be scrapbooking during the fall season.  It would be wonderful if you posted your work in the Scrapjazz Gallery, and I look forward to seeing your projects.

Additional supplies used in layouts:

• 1 1/2" Craft Punch-Circle
• large scalloped-edge border punch
• Martha Stewart Martha Stewart Medium Punch-Maple Leaf
• Washi tape