Welcome to Design Principles for the Scrapbook Page–12 lessons that teach you about 6 design principles and illustrate putting them to work on the scrapbook page.
NOTE: This is the FREE version of the class. If you’re looking for the upgrade with videos, click here.[hr]
Lesson 01 | Introduction to Page Parts & Design Principles
A structure is essential for making both beautiful and stable creations. This lesson lays out the structure this class teaches. Get started with lesson 1 to understand the ground we’re covering: 6 design principles important to making layouts, and 5 key page parts.
Lesson 02 | Design Principle of Emphasis
Different parts of your scrapbook page should have different levels of importance. Without some variation in emphasis among the elements on your page, everything takes on the same level of importance, and the viewer has to find some way into your page on their own. When emphasis exists, though, the viewer’s eye is drawn to a starting point and then (with some good “flow management”) knows where to continue. The result is the viewer “gets” what your page is about.
Lesson 03 | Design Principle of Repetition
Unity refers to how the parts of a design come together as a whole. If the elements on a scrapbook page look like they belong together (as opposed to having been collected and placed randomly) you have unity. In the quest for a design with unity, the WHOLE design is more important than any element or grouping in it.
Including repetitions is a good way to work toward achieving unity on a page.
Open Lesson 3 [divider_flat]Earn a Bonus Class | Score 80% and earn the MSD Focal Points class
These questions are all from the materials in lessons 1, 2, and 3. Read the materials and take the quiz. Answer 4 or more correctly and earn the Focal Points class.
[WLQuiz_2 Free-02-DP4SBPAGE-01-02-03] [hr]Lesson 04 | Design Principle of Alignment
Welcome back to “Design Principles for the Scrapbook Page.” Earlier lessons covered the design principles of Emphasis and Repetition. Today we’re talking about another principle: Alignment.
Lesson 05 | Design Principle of Contrast
To this point, we’ve covered three principles of design: Emphasis, Repetition, and Alignment. Today’s lesson is about Contrast.
Lesson 06 | Design Principle of Balance
What are the balancing acts in your life right now?
Are you trying to get enough exercise to feel good about that big ice cream cone you had last night? Maybe you’re balancing saving and spending money. Perhaps you’re getting up a little earlier so that you’ll be done with work in time to spend time with family or friends.
Balance is about mixing and matching, giving and taking. It’s about placing two small stones on one side of the scale to balance the single large stone.
When the different parts of your life are in balance with one another, your days are easier to navigate. When the parts of a scrapbook page are in balance with one another, you’ve got a page that’s pleasing to look at and that tells your story well.
Open Lesson 5That wraps up the lesson on balance. The next one you’ll receive covers the final design principle in this class—Flow. After that, we’ll move onto the five page parts: journaling, photos, title, embellishments, and canvas.[hr]
Lesson 07 | Design Principle of Flow

Source: stock.xchng / chingtc
When you can incorporate visual flow into your scrapbook page design, you’ll guide the viewer’s eye through it, revealing what’s important along the tour.
Open Lesson 7So we’ve made it through six principles of design you can use for making sharp scrapbook pages! And we wrapped up with a great principle—flow—because it calls upon you to put everything you’ve learned so far to work. In the next lesson we’ll begin focusing on the key parts of a scrapbook page—look for that lesson in a few days. [hr] [divider_flat]
Earn a Bonus Class | Score 80% and earn the MSD Design Play class
These questions are all from the materials in lessons 4, 5, 6 and 7. Read the materials and take the quiz. Answer 4 or more correctly and earn the Design Play class.
[WLQuiz_3 Free03-DP4SBPAGE-04-05-06-07]Lesson 08 | Page Parts
We’ve covered 6 design principles so far — and now it’s time to look at 5 page parts. This lesson lays out a roadmap for considering page parts–and the subsequent lessons will get in deeper on each of them.
This has been a roadmap of how we’ll proceed with the 5 page parts over the final four lessons of the class. I’ve given you some reading links for each page part, but–don’t worry!—I’ll be addressing each of them in greater detail beginning with the very next lesson—which you’ll receive in a few days.[hr]
Lesson 09 | Photos (and applying design principles)
In the last lesson we made the move from focusing on design principles to looking at the basic parts of a scrapbook page. The choices you make regarding each page part should be done with an understanding of the implications for good use of design principles.
Today we’ll look at photos.
Open Lesson 9 [hr]Lesson 10 | Journaling (and applying design principles)
This lesson is about your scrapbook page journaling–and getting it onto the scrapbook page with smart use of layout design principles.
Lesson 11 | Titles and Embellishments (and applying design principles)
We’re nearing the end of learning about how understanding design principles and using them as you choose and place all the parts of a scrapbook page yields awesome and original layout ideas. Lessons 2-7 covered design principles (emphasis, contrast, balance, alignment, repetition, flow). Lessons 8 through 12 are about putting those design principles to work as you render all the parts of a scrapbook page (photos, journaling, embellishments, title, and canvas).
In this lesson the focus is on titles and embellishments. While each of these topics could fill many lessons on their own, for this class I’ve grouped them together because (in my mind) titles often work as page embellishments, and the design considerations for them are the same or quite similar.
Open Lesson 11I hope you’re finding time to scrapbook . . . and I’m curious about whether you’re finding yourself trying new things or if any of your approaches have changed as a result of this class. We’d love to hear from you over in the forums (if you’re new to the forums, you’ll need to register–the login is separate from this area). The next lesson is on the final page part – which is my favorite and a huge topic: canvas.[hr]
Lesson 12 | the Canvas (and applying design principles)
This is the final lesson in Design Principles for the Scrapbook Page.
The initial lessons covered six basic design principles: emphasis, contrast, repetition, balance, alignment, and flow.
Subsequent lessons (including this one) covered 5 basic scrapbook page parts: photos, journaling, title, embellishments, and canvas.
Open Lesson 12 [divider_flat]Earn a Bonus Class | Score 80% and earn the MSD Layout class
These questions are all from the materials in lessons 8 through 12. Read the materials and take the quiz. Answer 4 or more correctly and earn the Layout class.
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that’s it!
And that’s it! We’ve looked at 6 design principles and 5 page parts and lots and lots of ways to put them all together.