Complementary layouts - start of the Hungary/Romania album

Andrew commented several weeks ago that I had not yet started scrapping the photos from our anniversary trip last summer.....gulp.

So, I ordered up the first set of prints, and I used NSD to motivate myself to get working on them.

I've always created stand alone albums for our major vacations.  They tend to be a little different than my normal layouts.  I like them to be more of a travelogue.

- I keep a journal when we are on vacation, with copious notes and the layouts have a LOT of journaling.....my goal is that it's almost educational for the reader (and a good reminder of the place/culture/history when I go back and read it).
- I like to keep and include all sorts of paraphernalia/ephemera from the trip....not sure how easy it will be to incorporate that stuff this trip because the language is so different and almost nothing was in English that it's hard for me to figure out which receipts go with what at this point.
- I like the album to be somewhat cohesive.  In the past I've used a particular collection throughout to tie it together.  I don't anticipate doing that for this album, but I did decide that I was going to use white cardstock for the base of each of the layouts.
- There are a lot of double page layouts.  Where the layouts aren't specifically double  pagers I try and make them complementary, like with this pair.

This first layout is of the Citadella in Budapest, situated at the highest point in the city you get an amazing view from there.  The Citadella itself dates back to the Hapsburgs, although the monument which is now called the Statue of Liberty was actually erected by the Soviets and called the 'Liberation Monument' when they gained control of the region following WWII.

I was unable to take a shot of the entire monument because of the height/short distance to the railing in front of the monument, so when I got the photos I decided to create a collage out of them.  I've done this before, but usually more of a panorama with several photos where you end up with a long rectangle/strip.  I decided to just leave the photos in this kind of funky shape because I like the lines of it, and it left some natural areas for journaling.

After I finished that page, the next location to document was the Hungarian White House.  This one is a bit more 'square'.  Since I want to have a cohesive look when you open up the book, I used the same supplies from the first page, but not all in the same way.  The mist that was used for the splatter on the first layout was randomly misted on some white cardstock to create mats for the photos as well as a background for the title.  I reused the SC paper from the first page as well as the vellum, and the same thickers, but in white.  To add some contrast and accentuate the idea of 'white', I colored the top of the 'THE' thickers with a black Spectrum Noir marker.  I would have just used the black ones, but I was out of Ts.

 

Here's what the layouts look like side by side. 

 

 

I'm going to link up the Citadella page with 2peas Focus on Photos challenge and the White House page with Shimelle's scrapbooking with mists challenge.

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - White Daisy and Pacifica cardstock; Studio Calico - Classic Calico Vol 3 paper; Recollections - Vellum
Other:  Dylusions - London Blue spray; American Crafts - Black and White Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Journal Foam Thickers; Spectrum Noir - Pure Black marker; Pigma - Black Micron Pen; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Creative Memories - Photo Splits