multiple pics on a layout too busy?

I have 7 years of scrapbooking to make up for and about 3000 out of 7000 favorite pictures. I can't imagine ever getting caught up.

I am currently working on a book from the time I told my husband I was pregnant to their birth. First birthday card to Daddy when I told him he was going to be a daddy. First sonogram pics, 2 baby showers, lots of belly shots, etc.

I notice that most of you do 1-3 pics max on a page.

Do you think it would be too busy to do one page with 8-10 pics of varying size for say, a baby shower. I don't really want to do multiple pages and I have several favorite pics I want to include.

Do you have any examples you can direct me to that you have done with multiple pictures?

You all are so awesome. Thanks in advance!

I will pull some in a little later for you - I use a lot of pictures per page. Mostly because I'd be bankrupt if I did only one picture per page. And I like a lot of pictures on my pages.

I think layouts with a lot of pictures can be very interesting if they are done well. Sometimes I organize them and sometimes I do them collage style.

We just got back from a 2 1/2 month vacation and I have 1,399 pictures ready to print - they are already on the thumb drive to take to Walgreens on the way home from the terminal.

I will scrap most of them. We leave on vacation again in March so I have from now until March to scrap them all.

I almost always do multiple photos on a layout only because I take a lot of photos. We went to NYC for a week and I had over 600 photos to put into one scrapbook.
I love using the Becky Higgins Sketch books for ideas.

I do almost all multi pic layouts. I'm on my phone, otherwise I'd embed some here. You can look at my gallery and the main gallery, click on photo info, number of photos and select 5 or more for some great examples.

Good luck.

I do a lot of multi-photo pages. I very rarely do a single unless I am doing a challenge.

• pugs223 Said:

THANKS! I am still learning the ins and outs of this site. Saw some good stuff there! Thanks

• Henri Jean Said:

Yes, I here that. Another good reason!

I just signed up and I am surprised at the samples with only one or two pic's. I do at least four on my sheets, and this goes for both my 8x11 books and my 12x12. I curious how you post a sheet. Do you take a photo of it?

• dblane34 Said:

I'm curious too. I don't know how either. Not that I have any post worthy at the moment.

I typically do layouts with at least 4 photos on them. I even have some layouts in my gallery that have 20+ photos on them. Feel free to check them out and scraplift anything you see. Also a great site for layout ideas for multiple photos is http://www.pagemaps.com They have lots of multi-photo layout ideas. Plus the gallery here has tons!

mutli pics look good on 2 pagers where you can layer and spread them out . you don't have ot have them all over the page but maybe printed to a smaller size (3x5 or wallets) mixed with 4x6 and concentrated to the middle leaving some negative space for strips of diff PP.

I see this techniquie all the time and love it.

Some people scan their layouts to post them which looks really nice but I just shoot a camera photo. I'm not as technical as most here.

I teach Scrapbooking Classes at AC Moore and one to the things that I teach is that you do not have to decorate every page.

Let's say you went to Disney, you are going to take lots of pictures. So let’s say you went to Epcot, the Castle and the Safari.

So you first page will be LO of about Disney. Your next page will be a LO of Epcot. 5 – 10 pages or more will just be pictures taking at Epcot, you can but do not have to decorate or embellish.

You will do the same with the pictures at the Castle and the Safari. Every so often you can add a journaling spot were a picture might be.


I got the idea when I saw 12x12 pages that had slots for 4x6 pictures.

You can just place the pictures on the page in any order you want. You can also decorate, embellish and journal as you want. Let’s say that after 3 pages you decided that you would like to do a LO even though you are still in the middle of your Epcot pictures.

The main point is that you do not have to Scrap every single page wither it is a single picture LO or multi picture LO. The point of Scrapbooking is to get your pictures in a safe place to be displayed.

I think whatever you like you should do. That being said -- I do multiple pics and single pics. Maybe you can pic several major photo's that represent the most important events and do them as single photo (or 2) photo pages. That will add to their importance. And then do the other pages with lots of pics. I also agree that spreading over 2 pages is a wonderful way to get lots of pics on a page.

Good luck & looking forward to seeing your creations.

I do single pic and multi-pic LOs as well. A favorite technique is to do a 2-pager with only 1 or 2 pics on 1 page and 5 or so on the other.

Searching the gallery by # of pictures is a great way to get started, as are sketches, and just remember there is no wrong way to scrap ... just have fun.

Here is one of mine from the gallery.It has 10 pics on a 2-pager.

Laughs By Madmatter

There are a lot of really well done lo's in the gallery that have tons of pics per page. I'm always sooo impressed by a page that is well done that has lots of pics and beautiful embellies(and if it has terrific journaling, WOW) ...I'm not good at that, so I'm very impressed by it.

Here are some multi-pic lo's that have impressed me.

(not embedded ) http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=gallerie...

Whip By GMFTS

Good Things Come in Three By Thestampinbean

Jewels of Africa By CathyLane

we tied the knot By Michellescraps

A Day at the Beach By MommyMarci

visit to nuclear power station By Kukik

Opening Day 2010 By Troylet

Merry Christmas 2009 By Dianeaslm

1-2-3 grow By Apa Kabar

Taskforce Leatherneck By Okispice

Total Diva By J3Mel

New Camera By TesaB

Where did you get that hat? By SuperAllyFan

I do a mixture - here are some o my multi-pic los:

Just Laugh (2-page) By SuperAllyFan

Dance Central By SuperAllyFan

Family By SuperAllyFan

Let's Party By SuperAllyFan

Kimberley Anne By SuperAllyFan

New York, New York! By SuperAllyFan

Snow By SuperAllyFan

I usually do lots of pics, I want to include more and not waste space. Not to criticize those that only use a few, those pages are beautiful too, but it's not usually my style. Feel free to peruse my gallery, I know for sure I just did one for my grandparents anniversary where the left page was just one focus photo of them but then the right page was 9 photos of the family that were there.

And as you will see in my signature, never let anyone else's crafting dictate what you should or shouldn't do - there is NEVER a wrong way in this hobby, so do what works best for you!

Crop, crop and crop in close on your pictures. I see more and more overlapping in the gallery too. When I know I will be using several pictures in a layout, i print them smaller than 4x6. I may print one special picture at or almost 4x6 for the focal picture and then do the rest at about 2x3 or 3x4 which can be printed on a 4x6 size to save money printing.

I mostly do 5+ pics on a 2 page layouts myself and really, the only time I do a single pic or two is for portrait type pictures, class pictures, that once in a lifetime, just happened to have my camera handy fun picture, so crop away! Those are some fantastic examples of great multis that others have posted for you.

Wow!!!!

Thanks everyone! Lots of inspiration here! Beautiful work that really fits my style and desire to create multi pic lo's.

I have saved so many new favorites! Thanks.

Hi Again

I have to admit I don't know what a sketch is. Is it a style or literally drawing?

Can someone explain?

Sketches are drawings, or blueprints of different layouts.

Like a scrap by numbers? "Scraplifting"? Follow the the page and fill in like you see in the book?

Might be a good way for me to get started back into the scrapbooking arena.

I just finished this layout yesterday and this might be pushing it a bit on busy haha.But I just could not decide on pictures. It started out being a picture of them wearing their "Big Brother and Little Sister" shirts and me using just that in the layout, but it grew! Keeping pics to a minimum should not apply to grandmas!

I really like it. Not too busy for me.

Thanks for the scraplifting permission. lol. I will do so for sure.

Great examples there.

I think I have a style like Just G and Trina P describe. A focal point and smaller supporting pics.

I think my expectations are really high too so I feel intimidated by the amazing lo's others produce. But like another posted said what matters most is preserving the pictures and getting them off my phone and computer for all to enjoy.

I appreciate the encouragement, suggestions and examples.

I am inspired.

I am the queen of two page LOs with multiple pages. I travel and take thousands of photos and I don't have the heart to throw away a lot of them and I don't have space for a million albums if I only used one-two photos! LOL!

Good luck with your project!

I have done up to six or seven photo on a single page. In that case, I make one photo large (about 4x6 or 5x7) and the rest small (about 2x2). I'm also pretty clean about it -- keep the smaller photos in a photo-strip format; make the smaller photos black & white to allow more attention to the bigger photo.

A good way to search for inspiration in the gallery is to do it by number of photos in the LO. Not everyone selects that option when uploading, but you still get some good ideas.

Forgot another way to go about it -- something I've tried a couple times. Incorporate hinges onto your page. They'll allow you to add more photos behind one layer.
I Be Yo Yo Gabba for Halloween! By MommaSaid
journaling and hidden photos By MommaSaid

I take pics of my LO's. I lay them on the floor and shoot from directly above them. Then I upload them to my computer and crop them to JUST the size of the pages. I believe there is a post somewhere with more detailed instructions, but I can't find it again.

Here is the link to the Sketches part of the gallery plus some good websites - you use the sketch in whatever way you want. You can follow it to the letter or use it to get a general idea of what you want your page to look like. I rotate and mirror sketches I like to get more options

http://www.scrapbook.com/gallery/?type=other&a mp;c=255
http://www.pagemaps.com
http://www.pencillines.com
http://sketchabilities.blogspot.com/
http://www.creativescrappers.blogspot.com/
http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/
http://piasdoodling.blogspot.com/p/my-sketches.html
http://gotsketch.blogspot.com/

I'm currently doing a baby album as a gift for my aunt - I know she'll have tons of photos, so I did a single page LO for each month (with title and one photo spot), followed by a divided page protector that she can just slip more 4x6 photos into...that's another option. Good luck!

I've recently started using Kerri Bradford's storyboard templates and I LOVE them! You can put multiple photos onto an 8x10 size print and decorate around it.

Here is one of my favourite scrappers using her templates

http://nicholmagouirk.typepad.com/things_that_really_matter/2011/11/november-studio-ae-from-technique-tuesday-blog-hop.html

I hardly ever make any LO's with just one or two pictures on it. From every trip we make I come home with loads of pictures and although I do make a selection of the ones I get printed, I end up with 100's for one album. You can look in my gallery to see some examples. I have done a LO with four pages lately which has over 20 pictures in it.
And I do not always use the complete picture.

i do a lot of pics on a page all the time. you shouldn't worry about how things look to others, it's your scrapbooks.

4 pics to a page:
Hawaii 2010 - Page 10 - Meanwile At The Lab By Aquabunny


5 pics to a page:
Hawaii 2010 - Page 23 - Waikiki Aquarium By Aquabunny

Polar Bears and Penguins (NSD 2011 Challenge: Get Out) By Aquabunny

A Bite to Eat By Aquabunny


6 pics to a page:
Hawaii 2010 - Page 27 - Brazilian Cardinals By Aquabunny


8 pics to a page (the first layout I thought of):
Hawaii 2010 - Page 8 - Whales By Aquabunny


9 pics to a page:
Rabbit Defined By Aquabunny

VERY nice work! Thanks