A 'white space' layout by Ingeborg Dijkstra

In all those years that I have been scrapping, I have always been a fan of 'white space' on layouts. Okay, I admit ... in the beginning I thought it always had to be actual WHITE space, but I soon realized

'white space' means: leaving space on your layout

and not filling every inch with embellishments, stamps or papers.

I believe 'white space' can actually add to the design and most of the time it brings focus on your picture (s) too. I made this layout using 'white space' as a part of the design. After I finished I also made a sketch, which shows clearly how there is lots of 'space' left. For some this is easy, for others ... it might freak you out! But ... if you're a scrapper that puts heaps of stuff on your layouts, I challenge you to go for plain, simple and 'white space' one time!

I wanted to have straight lines and some curves too to avoid a too boring look. I used an 11" x 11" inch sheet of white cardstock as my base. With a pencil I made half a heart shape to write my journaling on. In my head I already knew where the picture would be. I even put it on the layout while drawing the curved line to see if it would work out okay. I also created a doodled border around the white cardstock.

Using one of my favourite Tim Holtz stamps, I stamped a rectangle shape on the paper. The layout is about my daughter and my husband, so I wanted to add 'male' elements as well as 'girly' touches.

I didn't want this layout to be too predictable, so I rotated the white cardstock and stuck it on a 12" x 12" piece of patterned paper (from the Marrakech Collection by Basic Grey). This totally freaked me out, because I like things STRAIGHT!

I added a mat around my photo and stuck it on a piece of striped paper (Marrakech Collection, Cardamon) to emphasize the colours of the photo.

I used the Marrakech Alphabet Stickers for my title and I finished the layout by using a border and some stickers from the Marrakech Elements Sticker Sheet.