I’m excited to have a post here today by Heather Hess, a super talented scrapper, a wonderful fontographer and designer, and makes the occasional Digi Show appearance as well (I need to schedule her again soon). She’s talented AND witty and a whole lot of fun! I really enjoyed reading these fun tips from her and I know you will enjoy them too!
Hiya. My name is Heather, I’m 25 years old, have no children, and (despite my mom’s best attempt to photograph my childhood) have few scrapable photos…. but love to scrapbook! We all have memories that we wish we had a camera. Maybe the batteries were out, the lighting was bad, or it was in a time before digital. Whatever the case…. you do have the memories. So scrap them anyway. Sometimes hard to sit down at a blank canvas and figure out how to make a page without that photo in your mind. And yes, sometimes it is hard to find photo-less templates. But who says scrapbooking is about preserving photos, it’s about preserving memories for me, and this is how i love to go photo-less while using a photo filled template.
Patterned Paper. Have you ever swooned over a kit just because the paper just about took your eyes out for dinner and dancing? Well yes. We all have. I love a beautiful pattern and there have been a few that I may have felt close to marrying but this is your chance! Place them on the photo mask. Show them off. Then journal that matching memory. You wouldn’t want to journal about rainy day activities with a paper that is bright and sunny. Don’t be afraid to let the papers really set the tone of the journaling, it really helps to take the place of the photo.
A picture is worth a thousand words huh? Well then thats where you should stick your journaling! Give your photo mask a solid paper or journaling mat and journal away! Use that space to share the memory through your words and paint a photo in it’s place.
Elements. It’s like a picture the designers give to you! Cover up the photo mask with a non distracting paper then stick that element right on top. It can instantly set the tone of the page and make the memories flood out of your head almost instantly.
You could also just hide it. Yeah, the photo mask. Just hide it. Show that beautiful layer work that template has to offer. Go about the rest of the template as you normally would just without your photo.
And finally title it! Give your page a grand ol’ title. You won’t even realize that there aren’t any photos. Just like everything else, it sets the theme of the page instantly so you will instantly be drawn back to the memory, much like a photo would.
I know scrapping without a photo can be scary at first (at least it was for me), but once you start it’s like you can’t stop. They just keep happening. And then you get to preserve those great memories that may have otherwise slipped away.
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GREAT post! Very inspirational.
I love photo less LO’s, and made a bunch of them, but it’s true that they are hard to design (I feel that all the attention is on composition and typography) so your tips are highly appreciated
. I often use wordarts I like, bring them as they are or change them a little bit and build the page around it. I’ll try using templates for sure.
Thanks so much for this article full of useful tips!! Like Heather, I don’t have kids or pets but I love to scrapbook!!!
Thank you for this post! I’ve got a very similar situation photo-wise, and I’ve always been kind of shy about making layouts without photos – like maybe it wasn’t “real” scrapbooking, or something silly like that. So thanks for some courage and a couple more ideas for recording those memories
This is a great post! I have one layout without a photo and although I love the story, I can’t stand my LO, if you can even call it that. I am so inspired by these LO’s and the idea of using a template! Fantastic idea! Thanks so much!
Fabulous ideas. Thanks. I’ve done photo free layouts before but it never occurred to me to use a template.
This is an awesome post! I am the world’s worst photographer and my worst habit is simply forgetting the camera in the first place! I am totally inspired to scrap some great memories using your ideas!
I’m so glad to see someone else with the same issue as me, no kids, no good photos to scrap, but yet wanting to use all the cute digi kits anyways! Awhile back, I too decided to just go photoless much of the time and I love the results. I love your style and will definitely remember some of these tips in the future!
Thanks so much for this post. I always feel lost trying to do a photoless page but now I think I can tackle one!
Wow it helps your layouts are so cute lol. And here I was just thinking the other day I only had one pic of an event. This would also be a great idea for those shutterfly books that seem to require a hundred pics – just have several pages like these interspersed.
It’s like an art journal for the digi addicts! You don’t need photos to visually tell a story.
These are such gorgeous, perfect layouts! Thank you for the inspiration.
Love this post! I’m childless too, and petless. There are only so many landscape/food/home details/travel layouts I want to do, and this post has given me some great scrapping ideas.
I am so inspired! Thank you!!