For Father's Day this year, I made a mini-album for Michael. While I had known for a while this would be his gift, I was having a hard time coming up with
the concept and exactly what I wanted to capture in the mini-album. One night Emma was
downstairs playing while I was on the computer. I started asking her random questions about her Daddy, and the mini-album was born. As I asked the questions and she answered, I typed out our conversation. It was priceless. Her answers were
so perfect, so her (obviously) and I couldn't wait to put it together.
I used a simple design that left plenty of room for the journaling strips. I wanted to use current pictures, nothing more than a few months old. This proved to be difficult as I ran out. Which, by the way, surprised me. I take a lot pictures! I planned to take a few on Father's day
to add to the album later, but when Emma woke up with pink eye, well, that
plan was put on hold! I actually just finished this up last night, adding pictures taken within the last month.
I had to cover the album up every night so Michael wouldn't see if before Father's Day. Turns out one night I forgot, and when he was down
here on the computer he saw it. According to him, he got excited when he saw the cover,
but didn't sneak a peek. Always a good sign. The excited part, that is. When we gave it to him on Father's Day, he loved it. And I love how it captures both
Emma at 3 and their relationship. I'm so glad this conversation is recorded because it will be neat to look back and see how she talked, how she thought and what words and sentences she was using at this time. I threw in a few photos of Michael with
Mackenzie, too. Don't want the youngest to make me feel all guilty 14 years from now when she's a teenager looking at this album!
While a conversation can be a great basis for a mini album, you can also make one the focus of a layout, like I did on this page about Emma's ballet camp.
One thing I do when I'm struggling with journaling is write as if
I'm talking to a friend. I type as if I'm telling a
story to someone sitting next to me, just free typing, not worrying so much about proper sentence structure. I like
the idea that when someone reads it, they'll hear my voice in the story
I'm telling.
Then there's always lists. Lists are great. The who, what, where, why and
when of an event or milestone. The simple details of an everyday occurrence. And
in this case, a record of the words my youngest daughter is saying right now. Of course,
she's added numerous new words since then. I think it was outdated the very next day.
I also used a list format on my August WCS gallery page. I took these pictures as we were walking out of the the parent orientation at Emma's preschool. You can see just a bit of me and Michael in the small photo, that's the door to the preschool in between us. For this journaling, I just wanted to get the main points down. It's sort of a cross between a time line and an outline. I could've easily expanded on each sentence, but I didn't feel I needed to. The bullet points (minus the bullets) get my message across.
When Emma turned 3 back in February, I knew I wanted to do a page describing just who she was at that moment - likes, dislikes, personality, etc. But as I started doing it, it got wordy and really long, like a whole 8.5 x 11 page long. So I started over. I decided to just write the first words and phrases that came to mind when I thought about Emma. I didn't worry about flow, how much sense it made, how proper it was. I just wrote. And this is what I got:
It's totally her. I'll be doing this every year on Emma and Mackenzie's birthdays now. I love it. Oooh, you know what would be cool? To do this in a mini-album. Like a 6x6. You could do a two-page spread. On the left is a photo or photos from the year, and on the right the journaling. This idea just occurred to me and it might be my next mini-album. After I finish my December daily album, of course!
Today's challenge: Scrapbook a conversation. Any conversation. Short or long. Silly or serious. I hope to see your layout in the Flickr gallery! If you can make note of which challenge you're doing, that would be great. Thanks!
