by Sara Naumann for Hot Off the Press

(Click on layouts or on links below to see details with instructions.)

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It’s Saturday night at your favorite store’s Midnite Madness Cropping Party. Your Crop-in-Style is full of paper, pens, templates, eyelets, fibers, Hermafix—you’ve got everything you need to get those photos of your son’s first day at school cropped, matted and into an album.

You’ve got everything, that is, except an idea.

Here you are—all ready to go, and not a single page idea to be found. You flip through an idea book for inspiration, but all you see is girl pages. You don’t need girl pages….wait a minute! Why not take a girl-themed layout and, well, turn it into a boy's layout?

After all, when you see a good thing—like a wonderful album page layout—there’s no reason you shouldn’t reuse it! And there’s no worry that your album will look the same page after page. What’s the trick? By using different paper patterns and colors, you can recycle the same layout for themes as diverse as wedding and Halloween, Christmas and Easter, and yes—even "tween" girl and little boy.

Take a look at these two pages. Even side by side it’s tough to see that they share the same layout—but in fact, the only thing designer Shauna Berglund-Immel changed was the paper. She used the same color-blocked layout for both pages. Each layout has three tags. They even share the same font. Yet while the funky retro paper definitely says “13-year-old GIRL ”, the same arrangement on bright blue and yellow papers makes for layout that’s all BOY.

“One thing I advise scrappers about is following the Golden Rule,” says Shauna. “Always, always mat your photos onto a solid paper before placing them on a patterned background. The same goes for your journaling and other elements, too. A simple mat will do wonders to keep the patterned paper from overwhelming your photo. Other than that—just about anything goes!”

When it comes to adapting layouts, Shauna says: “Sometimes it’s just a matter of looking at a page in a different way. Next time you see a page you like, think about what it is that attracts you to it—it’s just a matter of changing the photos and the paper!”

Be sure to click on these links to see the pages close-up with step-by-step instructions and supply lists:

Tween Girl: Go Team - Layout in Detail with Tips and Instructions

All Boy Page: Josh’s First Day of School - Layout in Detail with Tips and Instructions

For more of Shauna’s pages, check out Making Marvelous Scrapbook Pages, the newest 144-page idea book from Hot Off The Press. It’s packed with the latest information all the latest creative techniques, from mixing patterned papers to making lumpy pages! Visit Hot Off The Press at www.paperpizazz.com to learn more.