With a trip to Hawaii, I wanted to capture, the bright colored flowers, the vibrance of the blue sky and the festive feel so this book was about color. This book measures 8.75 x 11.25 landscape, lay flat pages by My Publisher. The quality of the book and photos is outstanding. I created my pages in Adobe Photoshop using digital patterned paper with color overlays. Each page included a simple tropical border and Ali’s Hand font. Since the pages were bright, if the photos were not full page or very large, I used a black border around the smaller photos to help them stand out on the page.

A little tip: I often pick up artistic postcards on trips and use them for covers or page decoration.

Here are some of the pages from our Hawaii 2011 book:

Title page – Location and dates. The rent-a-car and arriving at the hotel.  The view from the room and an activity at the hotel. Details. Water slides and snorkeling. Jacuzzi and antics in the hotel room. A new outfit. A selfie. A loose tooth and stopping at Starbucks. Details at the USS Bowfin museum. The USS Arizona Memorial. A scenic shot and thoughts about witnessing this piece of history. A Luau. More details. Dancing at the luau. Learning the hula and fire dancing. Breakfast. Paddleboarding. Enjoying the beach. Playing. More playing. He lost his first tooth. Thanksgiving dinner. Hawaiian crafts. The Nui (a little luau). Visiting the North Shore. Lunch and stories. Iconic images of the North Shore. Another sunset and details. The Art. Swimming. Leaving and heading home. A collage of all the paraphernalia – tickets, map, postcards, certificates, wristbands, brochures, receipts, etc.

Don’t be afraid to use color, but I did find that the pages with a bit more muted tones worked much better than some of the bright, over powering colors.