KISS

Like I said, some of my very favorite layouts are where I kept it super-simple and let the pictures speak for themselves. This typically works best when you have excellent pictures, of course!

Opening page on my wedding album. Swirls on top and bottom are hand-drawn, date is hand-lettered, black border is ribbon with mesh sides. A nice-looking page that's seriously inexpensive!

More wedding simplicity - this seemed the perfect place to keep it simple and use lots of black & white. When the photos became less formal, us visiting with family and eating at the reception, I used more colors and ripped paper and such, but at the beginning I kept it very straight-laced. The quote on the side is from a vellum quote book from Michael's, the white paper is held down by multiple grommets in silver.

 A very light green background for our outdoor pictures, darker green paper under another vellum quote, thin green ribbon layered over and under the quote paper. Darker green paper held at corners with silver grommets. Of all the pages in all the years I've scrapbooked, this is one of my very favorites, and it's so simple! I really lets me enjoy the beautiful photos, we had an excellent wedding photographer.

Another excellent photographer took newborn pictures of our 4th child, so I took the simplistic approach - all the pictures have the same slightly mottled tan background, I used thin brown ribbon somewhere on each page, then I alternated black and white patterned paper styles underneath. This is an 8x10 photo on a 12x12 page. I love the crisp gap of paper set off between the two ribbons.