The kids’ winter vacation put a serious cramp in my daily blogging. Yep. That’s what I’m blaming. 😉

Layout a Day continued however, with a new emphasis on kraft paper apparently.

The prompt for Wednesday involved using a large photo. I didn’t have any enlargements handy, but I did have this bit of memorabilia left from Halloween. The packaging was so fun, it practically demanded a scrapbook page of its own.

Thursday for me, was all about reflecting on the relationship my youngest has with his cousins. (As well as the purple and brown colors for the day’s prompt.) The visit with my sister and her very demanding and aggressively affectionate three-year-old left my kid very glad he doesn’t have any younger siblings. He does however, play really well with my brother’s daughter, who has been a lot of fun for him, once she was no longer a teeny tiny baby. I’m sure he’ll like his younger cousins more once they’re bigger too. He’s just definitely not a baby person.

The prompt for Friday was the title from a Judy Moody book. That was an easy one to do. Also, if you notice, Thursday’s and Friday’s pages use the layer cake style to create a background for the photo. While the designs are very similar, the paper variety gives them each a different appearance.

Saturday’s page is vaguely related to the day’s prompt. It started with the idea of describing myself. I’ve been a writer for forever — I still have the first story I wrote on my own in second grade somewhere. Which reminded me of the story my son wrote last year for school. He did a great job putting it together, and he’s got tons of ideas for characters. He wants to create a video game rather than a book like I did, hence all the gears on the page.

Yesterday’s prompt was about reading habits — how did our childhood reading habits affect our adulthood reading habits? While I had lots of ideas for how I could work that into something about myself, I didn’t have any relevant photos handy. I did, however, have this photo of my son reading that really worked with the idea of the prompt, so went with it. And yes, it is another layer cake page. I’ve been trying to use more scraps from my scrap bin, and this is a great way to use them up.

So that brings us up to today. Time to go listen to the prompt and get something made.

Let’s see if I can keep up with the daily posts now the kids are back in school!

Since I hadn’t put any supplies away, I did another Christmas themed page yesterday. I had a few ideas that fit the prompt, but sometimes you just have to deal with the mess you already have before you begin a new one.

I kept it pretty simple, using a pinwheel arrangement for my photos, over a wide banded background. A title, some quick journaling, and a handful of embellishments, and the page was done.

There’s no reason to make creating a scrapbook page difficult. If you keep the basics in mind as you create a layout, you’ll generally end up with a page that works. Sometimes it’s just the way you envisioned it, sometimes it misses the mark, and sometimes it turns into something entirely different. Regardless, it will work, and stand the test of time.

Now then, should I do another page about Christmas today, or should i go off another tangent altogether? Any opinions out there? I’d love to hear them!

Not every page you make has to be full of deep, meaningful journaling. In fact a great deal of it doesn’t need to be super-thoughtful. In order to tell a more complete story, you need a range of information. The basics are just as important as the in-depth storytelling you do on your pages.

Yesterday’s page, which fit the LOAD prompt to keep words to a minimum is a perfect case in point:

How much do you need to say about a mall Santa photo? Other than this was something we didn’t regularly do, there’s not much else that needs to be said. At least if you’re going to stay with the theme of the photo. If however, I’d decided to talk about where we were at that point of our lives, with a young baby, and a four-year-old, that would be a whole new story to tell.

But, yesterday I kept it simple. Our mall Santa photo has been scrapbooked. What’s the next story to tell?

Yesterday, I almost forgot to make a page for Layout a Day. Silly snowdays, throwing off the schedule!

At 9:15pm I remembered that I needed to make a page for the day. I had the page finished and added to Flickr by 10pm. Yep, you read that right. Under 45 minutes to create a page. You can do this!

I ignored the prompt for the day and began by looking through photos I had ready and waiting to be used. (I wanted to do a page about my grandmother’s house that would have fit the prompt, but I need to snag some photos from my mother to do that.)

After deciding on photos, my next step was to choose paper. I started going through some of my more recent acquisitions, and found a gorgeous argyle pattern three sheets from the top of the pile that would work great with the theme of the photos. (Socks!)

I knew I didn’t want to write a lot, since the photos were so self-explanatory, so I cut the paper down to 8 1/2 by 11. Then I searched my scrap bin for paper I could use to mat the photos so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the patterned paper. After matting the photos and adhering them to the patterned paper, I grabbed one of the alphabet sticker sets still sitting on my desk, and added a title, and outlined it with white pen to help the letters stand out more.

A quick browse through my embellishment stash yielded some surprisingly apt foot and heart eyelets and clips, and some label stickers made a quick spot for journaling. (I wrote my journaling, and then added the strips to the page, rather than the other way around.)

The longest part? The journaling, because my husband was trying to talk to me while I was writing, and I was trying to listen. And I wanted input into describing the bottom photo. That kid does love his socks.

Why did it take so little time to create this page? The main reason is because experience has given me the confidence to choose my supplies and design quickly. I can make pages that are more complex and artsy, but I don’t have to reinvent the scrapbook page every time I sit down to make a layout. Nor do I have to find the perfect paper or embellishment. If the supplies work, I’m good to go. No second guessing around here.

Making a scrapbook page is a very simple process. Photos, plus words, on paper. It really is that simple. You can do it! Just take one step at a time.