(My kid: More shark-y than scary.)
For the past five years I have designed Halloween-themed scrapbook layouts that were far cuter than they were creepy or chilling. My young daughter is not into blood and gore, so to get my page designs to reflect the spirit of her adorable animal costumes I stayed away from using horrifying Halloween embellishments. Instead, the layouts were filled with candy stickers, pumpkin die cuts and other sweet-not-spooky decorations.
However, she is getting older, and while she doesn’t plan to break with tradition and trick-or-treat as a decapitated ghoul, she did select a few 3D bat stickers from our local scrapbook store to use on her Halloween layout. Not exactly hair-raising stuff, but it is a move away from the black kittens and fuzzy candy corn embellishments we used last year.
If your kids are into hardcore gore, then you’ll want to decorate your scrapbook pages with embellishments that complement the tone of the photos and journaling. Fortunately, there is a vast array of touches you can add to your memory book to make them as gruesome as possible. For example, consider using a red pen to ink in blood splotches near photo frames. You could also use fonts that look like dripping blood or skeleton bones that are lined up to spell out eerie page titles.
Other ways to make your pages look intimidating is to purchase or download Halloween-themed paper. Black-and-white spider print paper is a great foundation for a layout featuring kids dressed up as ghosts, goblins and ghoulish fiends. In addition, don’t forget to include Halloween memorabilia such as scary-looking party invitations, fake cobwebs or little plastic bugs into your spooky scrapbook page. Finally, look for ways you can make ordinary embellishments a bit more shocking. For example, you could sand pieces of cardstock or tear patterned paper to give it a tattered and terrifying look.
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