How to: Double-Pagers!

So I don't do too many double-pagers but I recently had my kids' joint-birthday party, one a girl and one a boy. I quality-check for Dream Big Designs (yay!) and she just released some adorable Birthday party kits, one for boys and girls but the the color schemes work together so I thought I would do 1 page with both but wasn't liking that. So I decided a double-pager would work great. I personally, like to scrap the whole two pages together, this way they can flow together better as you have items crossing that border. So today I'm sharing some tips with you about scrapping double-pagers.

Make the background paper flow.
You do no want to stretch your paper to be 24x24. That would lower the quality immensely. Often, you can use the same background paper on both pages but I also have another idea. When we have papers that have edge work on them, like a grunge, flip one of the papers horizontally, so that the same edges meet up. This helps the gradient get darker and lighter matching up any spots/grunge. Obviously, do NOT do this if the paper has text or other items that would look weird backwards.

Use CTRL+ mouse click to find elementsSometimes my 1-pagers are crazy enough with a bunch of elements, now we have double the mess! So it might be easier to find the elements you are trying to move around by using this neat trick. With the move button selected, hold down the control key as you click on your layout, on the item you are trying to find. It should select that item in the layers palette and now you can better arrange it! No hunting through your layers for the element you are trying to adjust!

Avoid the middle groundBased on how you like to print your scrapbooking pages, it might be best to avoid putting someone's face or text or titles right in the middle of the double-pager. Give yourself about 1/4 inch on both pages to keep important parts of your layout out of the middle and out of book binding areas.

Cropping the finished productOk, so here's how I crop it once I finish scrapping it. And you might have noticed that the computer had a hard time with opening and saving such a large document. You might also want to crop and separate the two pages once you finish scrapping. Here's my page:





 Kit Credits: Dream Big Designs: Party Shop:Boy and Party Shop Girl

I decided to place a ribbon in the middle there too to help divide the page. You'll see I gave myself room on either side of the 12in mark.

Next, go to guides, and place one at 12 in vertically.




Now, go to the crop tool and starting on the left corner, drag it to the guide. It should snap to the guide we just made. Save that page and then click undo and repeat the process!


You'll see I checked and the image came out to perfectly 12x12. Without the guide, if you just try to use the rulers, you'll probably be off. Best to use the guide to make sure the cut is accurate! :)