Do you ever struggle with how many photos you should be including in your layouts? Well first off, you know how I feel about should or have to in scrapbooking so throw those preconceived notions right out that window! Second, the method I use for choosing the amount of photos per layout depends on how many I need to express the story and feelings I am sharing.
If you are scrapbooking a big event or vacation you might want to create several pages or even a mini album – you don’t have to feel that you have to include all the photos on one layout but you certainly can if that is what you want to do in order to tell your story.
Lately I tend scrap using one or two photos but only because I’ve been digging deeper and telling more personal stories not just documenting events.
This layout I created for LOAD has only one photo because I want to just focus on me and my list of things I want to do for the next year! One photo was all I needed to tell this story!
In this layout I was looking through my life and snapping photos so to get a complete picture I needed more then one photo so I created a collage! I use Picasa to create collages because it is so fast and easy! I was able to add a bunch of photos and still have room for embellishments and journaling!
How many photos do you use on your layouts? Does the story you are trying to tell influence the number of photos you use? I want to hear from you so leave me a comment below!
I tend to be a one or two photo scrapper as well for pretty much the same reason. Even if I am scrapping an event I try to find a smaller more meaningful story within the event thus one or two photos per page.
I like your approach Kelly
I am right there with ya. I use whatever I need to tell the story. Rarely I use one photo, but I am not afraid to if that is how I want to go.
I noticed with LOAD that I alot more 1-pagers than normal- and like you said- whatever is needed to get the story told.
That is what I took away from LOAD the most- telling the story. Which is Lain’s expertise. My layouts always describe the ‘event’ but now I am looking for the ‘story’ along with the event…does that make sense?
That absolutely makes sense Janet! Lain has that ability to get us to dig deeper and tell the things that may not be obvious in the photos.
Dani, I totally agree with you. It just depends on how many photos you want to use. We’ve even made pages without a photo! I can’t believe how much my scrapbooking has changed over the years. I’ve gone from seeing how many I could fit on a single page to telling stories that maybe don’t even have a photo to use. Years ago I would have never have imagined to put the stories onto my pages, that have ended up there now!
Kristie – I know it! I have a hard time with the no photo pages but you know when Lain tells me to do something I tend to do it haha!
I wasn’t much of a photographer when I first started scrapping. I mostly scrapped the photos my dh took. Still I didn’t have lots of photos, so I felt okay with scrapping them ALL! Then digital came along. I could take tons of photos, then pick the ones I wanted and scrap them. ‘Round about that time I took Stacy Julian’s course, Library of Memories. That’s when I STOPPED scrapping in chrono-order and also began picking out the best of the best photos for my layouts. I love scrapping large photos on a page.
I do a lot of resizing and editing of my photos through Photoshop Elements. On one layout I may use one picture, the next layout might have 4 photos! I kind of just go with what seems comfortable for the page 
Barb I agree with you! I go back and forth and I love using large images on a page.