Scrapbook the Shape of Love

Why not try something a little different for Valentine’s Day this year?

Create a scrapbook layout of your Special Someone in the shape of a heart instead of the regular square or rectangle.

I’ve done circular scrapbook layouts before, but there’s no reason why you should limit yourself to regular shapes like that.

This is great scrapbook idea that both digital scrapbookers and paper scrapbookers can try.

I’ve created this Valentine’s Day Layout for my daughter and her partner in Photoshop Elements and I’ll tell you how I did it below. But if you’re a paper scrapbooker it’s so easy to do too.

Instructions for both below.

Valentine’s Layout for Paper Scrapbookers

Draw a stylised heart on the reverse side of the background paper of your choice. Make it large enough to cover most of the background paper but leave about 1-1.5 inches around the outside. Cut out the heart shape.
I chose to change the colour of my photo to monochrome so it would stand out amongst all the colour and shapes of the layout but you may choose to leave it coloured.
Make a heart template from scrap card or use a template if you have one. Cut the photo into a heart shape.
Print your journaling out and fix it to a heart shaped tag. Or use some of my Word Art and print that out on coloured background which you can cut into the shape of a heart.
Add appropriate embellishments but don’t overdo it. Remember the shape if the layout is a focal embellishment in itself. And let your embellishments stick outside the edge of your layout a little.
When you’re satisfied with your layout design adhere your patterned background to a solid colour sheet of cardstock. You can choose a colour from the pattern on your background paper or a contrasting colour. You can do this step straight after the first step if you like, but by leaving it to the end you will hide the backs of any brads or ribbon ends if you used them.
Cut around the cardstock about 1/4 inch away from the edge of the patterned paper.
You can either slip your finished heart layout into a page protector or you can adhere it onto a sheet of transparency which will add support to it.

Digital Scrapbooking Valentine’s Day Layout

Open a 12″ x 12″ New File at 300dpi. Make sure you choose a Transparent Background.
Select your background paper. All the papers and elements for my If Music is the Food of Love… Layout are from Amanda Sok’s delicious Mulberry Wine kit from Scrap Girls. It’s a kit just perfect for romantic layouts.
Using the Shape tool from the Tool Bar, choose a heart shape and drag the mouse across your background paper. Simplify the Layer (Layer>Simplify Layer).
With the heart layer highlighted in your layers palette, from the menu choose Image>Transform>Distort. Now grab the handles on your heart image and start dragging them around with the mouse until you like the shape of the heart.
Select the Magic Wand tool and with the heart layer highlighted in your layers palette, click outside the heart. Then highlight your background paper and click delete.
Hide the heart shape layer as you may need to use it again on another element. and start building your layout on your heart shaped background paper.
I chose to change the colour of my photo to monochrome so it would stand out amongst all the colour and shapes of the layout (choose the Photographic effects from the Special Effects palette) but you may choose to leave it coloured.
I added my elements from the Mulberry Wine kit and played with the shadows.
I used the heart shape ‘template’ I had created to cut out a smaller heart from another paper to create the background for my title. And I chose a piece of Word Art from this week’s Free Weekly Word Art Newsletter.
To create some extra dimension I added a stroke outline around my photo and around my background (Edit>Stroke(Outline)Selection) and picked a dark colour from my background. Then I gave both hearts a small bevel from the Special Effects palette.