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I’ve written a few articles on the topic of colour schemes for scrapbook layouts in recent times. So I thought it was time I wrote about Black and White scrapbook layout colour schemes.

Let’s face it black and white is always a strong, elegant combination and on a scrapbook layout it can look fabulous.

It can be the perfect foil to a highly colourful photo, as in my Just an Old Fashioned Melody layout. And it can also look great with black and white photos; creating the ultimate monochrome scrapbook layout.

The key things to remember when designing your black and white scrapbook layout are texture and contrast.

Texture on Black and White Scrapbook Layouts

For a black and white scrapbook layout to look effective it should offer some variety to the viewer’s eye. With other colour schemes that variety is largely taken care of by the variety of colour and tones used in the different elements. With black and white layouts you need to add that variety by choosing elements with different textures, because the colours are not really contributing.

For paper scrapbookers, this can be achieved through tearing or crumpling your papers. Or by rolling and curling the edges. You can also choose a mix of materials with different textures in your design; such as cardstock, patterned paper, corrugated cardboard, fabric, ribbon, buttons and beads.

Make up for the lack of colour variety by replacing it with texture variety.

Digital scrapbookers can also use texture in their black and white scrapbook layouts. As you can see in the layout illustrated here, I have added a torn, rolled edge to my patterned paper and I’ve used a crumpled paper effect on the background, rather than just leaving it a flat black.

Applying effects such as bevels and shadows also help you to add texture to the layout. Your graphics editing software is probably packed with different textures you can apply.

Add Contrast to your Black and White Scrapbook Layouts

Black and White is the second most contrasting colour duo in the palette (no it’s not the strongest colour contrast, studies have determined that honour goes to black and yellow). So you’re already starting out with a contrast advantage. But if you’ve spread out a range of black and white papers in front of you, you’ll have realised that they’re not all the same. Some blacks are more charcoal or very dark grey, and whites can range from driven snow to creamy ivory.

Make sure that you pick some good contrasts in your tones. Especially in your embellishments. Otherwise they will disappear into the overall colour scheme and become almost invisible.

Digital scrapbookers can pump up the contrast on some of the embellishments to give them extra punch.

I used the music elements from Amy Cheeseman’s Heartsong kit in the Just an Old Fashioned Melody layout. I converted them to black and white and then increased the contrast to give them a bit of extra punch. Otherwise they would have receded into the background and been practically absorbed by the depth of the black.

I love the way that you can do stuff like this in digital scrapbooking. If your element isn’t exactly the colour, shape, size you want for your layout you can easily modify it to be what you want. And your original element remains the same; to be used again on another scrapbook layout.

If you’re a paper scrapbooker and you’d like to give digital scrapbooking a try so you too can do cool stuff like this. I recommend you click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook, which is a site designed specifically for absolute beginners to digital scrapbooking. Once you start, you’ll be totally hooked.

Other Related Articles:

Black is the new Black

How to Choose Color Schemes

Hybrid Scrapbooking - the Best of Both Worlds

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