Shadow & Balance Tips from a Scrapbooker

If you're a digi-scrapper that never started out as a traditional scrapbooker, it's easy to throw a bunch of embellishments and details onto a page and call it done. But do you ever feel like your finished page doesn't quite feel right?

Here are a few tips to get you thinking like a traditional scrapbooker, straight from Heidi Jackson of Heritage Maker's Studio Design Team.

1. Everything that you put on your page has WEIGHT to it. Think in terms of actual embellishments; If you were to hold your finished page up, and the flowers, jewels, etc were REAL, would your page hold up, or would it fold over? Put your "heavier" embellishments at the bottom of the page, and make sure that you have balance!

2. Digital Shadows are really easy to create, but are they realistic? Everything on your page except for your background paper SHOULD have a drop-shadow to it, but don't just rely on the default settings; Heidi always changes her drop-shadows to being a Charcoal Grey instead of straight Black, and she always thinks about how far away things would actually be from the page.

This page is an example of no balance, cheesy-looking shadows, and too much weight at the top.

Here is that same page, but with a few adjustments: more balance, weight being distributed along the bottom, and more realistic shadows.

Happy Storybooking!!