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Coastal  Scrapbooks

Design Idea: Lots of Squares

Layouts with lots of squares are in fashion, due no doubt to those pesky Instagram photos. There are lots of free templates available and there's a nine-square photo template in Memory Mixer and My Memories.

TIP: You might want to edit your photos in Picmonkey or another program first and crop them into squares. This could save you a lot of time and will mean you don't risk nudging one of your squares out of place while cropping photos within your layout.

I'm going to show you how I used the same set of photos from Sandbanks beach and the same kit, Just Beachy by Digital Design Essentials (Gina Cabrera).

9-Square Photo Template

You'll find this in Memory Mixer and My Memories. I left the photos as they were except for the middle one. I increased the size slightly, added a white mat and rounded corners and gave it a shadow to that it stands away from the page a little.

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Lots More Squares

This 25 square layout was based on a free template from Maya de Groot in the Oscaps store (April 2013).  I used the tif image as a temporary background and added photo boxes on top of it.

Tip 1: Place your first photo box over the first square and right click to copy it. That way you can Edit - Paste for the remaining squares so at least you will know they're the same size even if you misplace a few.

Tip 2: Create an album especially for any photo box templates you create this way. When you want to use it in another album go to the top and Insert then Import From Other Album/Project.

The plan for this page was to have one embellishment in each of the squares containing papers but, as you can saee, I let the word art and the windsurfer take up two and I couldn't resist letting the beach ball slip ... I also gave the seahorse a baby!

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Step outside the box ...

This was a Studio Scrap template and I basically went nuts throwing stuff at it:

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And a weird one ...

This was also made with a Studio-Scrap template. The photos are straight but the papers filling the squares are slanted to match the squares. Don't look at it for too long, it will give you a headache!

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Finally, a non-beach page!

OK, there is a little bit of beach in there. I couldn't help it, Swanage Railway is ten minutes' walk from the beach. I used Raspberry Road's Hemingway and Travelogue kits. As you can see, the clustered embellishments (pre-made...) take up several squares.

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