The Grid vs. The Pocket Page

Vacations are on everyone’s mind as the days warm up and the end of school looms ahead. You’ve got all your plans made for the trips you will take, but what will you do to get all your trip photos off of your camera and into albums where everyone can enjoy them? How will you scrap your trip?

There are so many choices out there from the traditional handmade, ready-made page kits, the trending pocket style, the newer digital and digital templates for creating your vacation memory pages. Whichever your “go to” style is and you likely enjoy many, we hope your favorite, the one you love, is Mosaic Moments style in the paper grid form or Cropdog’s digital grids.

There are so many reasons to go with the grid, they can be quick, they can be easy and they also can be flexible. Pocket scrapping has been popular because of the ease of popping in cards and photos into pre-assigned spaces and being done in no time flat. However, there are some limitations; your page pocket protectors follow a limited amount of patterns. After a while, there will be a lot of sameness to your albums. The pocket style also has a lot of the design work already done and may not have the flexibility for creativeness that you’d like to have.

In contrast Mosaic Moments currently offers you 122 patterns in our ever growing Pattern Gallery. If you love the row type style of the pocket pages we have 14 patterns that fit that style to choose from so far. Today I’ll show you two of the row patterns in action #150 and #203. I’ll also be using our Mosaic Moments Die Sets and that will help this to complete a layout in no time flat. The Grid System also allows for a wide range of creativity and personalization.

Scrap Your Trip: Pattern #203 rows

Scrap Your Trip: Pattern #150 rows

Scrap Your Trip double layout Pattern Style: Rows. Patterns #203 & #150

Scrap Your Trip page one Pattern #203

On the first page using Pattern #203, there’s a lot more size variety within the three rows and the opportunity to add color if you include paper tile mats for the larger photos on the top row. I have six main photos and portions of two other photos in the three 1x sections at the end of each row.

Scrap Your Trip page two Pattern #150

If you’ll notice Pattern #150 uses the same Set B Die for four photos…that was quick! Granted, I made my hand cut 1×10 strips a bit more complex and it took some time but a strip of patterned paper or plain cardstock would be great in these spots too.

This pattern also gave me a nice large center spot that I used for the journaling and a title. Any one of the photo spots could have been replaced with a journal card of some sort; I decided one of the larger sections gave me the room I needed to include a repeat of the pattern used on the strips on the top and bottom edges to tie it all together.
This time I’ve worked in a bit of a monochromatic palette. Our Pale Olive was a great match, almost a neutral shade, allowing the photos to shine. The greens of the foliage and colorful flags in the photos stood out nicely bringing their own color to the page. Other colors were picked from elements within the photos.

Technique:  Creating the 1×10 strips

I began by taking a 1” strip of graph paper and lightly adhering it to the back side of the 1”x 11 1/8”strips of cardstock so I could use the squares for spacing my pattern. Then turning the punch bottom side up I lined the lower edge of the cross along the paper’s edge and punched. Using the graph paper allows you to do this fairly quickly and makes lining up the pattern on the opposite side a breeze. Once finished I removed the graph paper and lined the back side of each strip with a section of different colors of cardstock. It is a really good use for some of those leftover sections of cardstock you just hate to toss out.

Scrap Your Trip Creating a Border with a Southwestern pattern

On the top row for the added bits that make up the pattern I used the cross punch again and repeated that same top section of the cross punching two for each section. Stick It! adhesive sheets let me cover the small bits thoroughly. A pair of tweezers made placing them together to create the pattern so much easier.

Scrap Your Trip adding borders to fit your theme. Southwestern pattern

On the bottom strip a small snowflake punch created the cacti by trimming away two “branches” to get a flat bottom. The red pearl pen added a random bloom or two to the row of cacti. Tiny pop dots used to adhere them gives a raised look to each cactus.

Scrap Your Trip: Cactus border

So if you’ve been a pocket page scrapper wanting a change of pace with a bit more flexibility, room for more creativity and not confined to the patterns of the pocket page protectors you have on hand then now’s the time for making the change.

See the many patterns we have to choose from in the Pattern Gallery. We have columns, pinwheels, mosaics, squares, puzzles, strips and symmetrical patterns (or create your own!)

Choose your colors for grids and paper tiles and you are set to go. Then hit the road on that summer vacation knowing that when you get home again, you’ll be ready to scrap your trip on your return!

Now, Go pack your bags and don’t forget the camera!!

Andrea Fisher

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Scrap Your Trip: The Grid vs. The Pocket Page comparing the ease, the speed and the flexibility of the two styles