Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Brought to you by the letter R.

I have to confess that today's post makes my heart beat just a little faster.

If I could have peered into the future when I started scrapbooking, I would have been surprised to see how often I would use my stash on all sorts of things other than layouts.  The more innovative the scrapbooking industry has grown, the more I’ve done just that.  It’s like having an overlapping supply for multiple creative pursuits, and it sure does come in handy.

R is for Re-purposing: Making the Most of All Those Pretties

For several years, we've had a 3-opening frame on the wall showcasing our wedding invitation and two photos.  I wanted to put it in our bedroom in our new house, but the cherry-colored wood just didn't work.  I painted the frame dark brown, but then I needed to deal with the wood around each opening and really didn't want to risk getting paint on the mat.  Patterned paper to the rescue!

With the help of my trusty ATG gun, the mat went from this

to this.

And now it matches our room.  All because of a little paint and paper.

(If you'd like to hop over to my blog when you're finished here, I've posted a tutorial on how to miter the corners of paper for a frame so that they fit together perfectly.)

I love to shop thrift stores and garage sales to find cast-off items with potential.  This was one such piece from a recent trip.  Doesn't it scream 70's?  (Not that I have anything against the 70's.  They and their cousins the 80's are the setting for all my childhood memories.)

After removing the mirror & glass, I painted and distressed the frame.  The rest of the transformation was accomplished with my computer and scrapbooking supplies.  I used digital paper and a favorite script font (Lainie Day) to print a quote, leaving space for some chipboard letters to be substituted for one of the words.  Then I distressed the letters, covered a chipboard house & heart with patterned paper, and assembled.

(all chipboard by Scenic Route)

It hangs next to our coat closet--a perfect spot for words that ring so true for me.

In case you'd like to try something similar (even with a simple picture frame), I've created two PDF's of the quote as pictured.  This one has no background, and this one is on the grunge background that I used. (My frame size was a little odd, so I re-sized the images to 5x7 to make them more usable.)

The lampshade in the bedroom of our two youngest certainly didn't clash with the decor, but I yawned every time I looked at it.

So I pulled out a sheet of Dollar Tree wall stickers, scraps of some favorite old (*smile*) BasicGrey paper, a circle punch, a few buttons and some rick-rack, and in a very short amount of time, they had a new, much cuter lamp shade.

For your added viewing pleasure and inspiration, here are a few more examples from other Write.Click.Scrapbook gals.  I was giddy each time one of these arrived in my Inbox.

Celeste:

bookends made of bricks covered in kraft wrap & patterned paper strips that were sewn together

pushpins made of clear glass pebbles, patterned paper & thumbtacks

cork board decorated with patterned paper, die cut letters & ribbon, pushpins made with chipboard shapes glued to thumbtacks

paper piecing done on corrugated cardboard and attached to a piece of wood so that cup hooks could be screwed in to hold keys

Emily:

a paper piecing of tree, leaves & ground with Proverbs 13:12 written on the mat in Emily's cool handwriting

I wish I had asked Emily her technique here, but it appears that she used a stamp on a watercolor square.  (Emily, can you give more specifics in the comments section?)  The quote is printed in an old-fashioned typewriter font. 

Francine:

project/idea journals for various areas of her creative life,

punched and gathered with binder rings,

with front & back covers to tie them all together

Cheryl:

digital scrapbook paper with a free tree brush and a quote, sanded edges, adhered to a piece of chipboard, with a little Tim Holtz metal piece of chain to the side

favorite starfish photos from a recent trip, title added before printing, edges sanded and distressed, slipped inside a jar of trip mementos

Full details from Cheryl: I recently bought a roll of canvas from the art supply store that is made for printers.  I have an Epson wide format printer which can do prints up to 13x19.  I had my husband cut me a piece of wood to 11.5x17.5, made this print digitally (digital kit from Libby Weifenbach) and then used spray adhesive to wrap the piece of wood.  This was my first attempt and it's a wee bit crooked, I would make sure to mark with a pencil where the wood should go on the back of the print next time.  (quote from the Beatles)

(Note: I have an Epson wide format printer.  You can bet I'll be looking for some of that-there canvas on a roll!)

I not only find it fun and fulfilling to use my stash to create home decor, gifts, etc., but it often provides some fresh inspiration when I'm stuck in a scrapbooking (or lack-of-scrapbooking!) rut.  The more creative I am with my supplies, the more ideas start flowing through my brain and fingers.

Give it a try and see if you agree!

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for an awesome give.away.day.  Then I'll return on Friday to unfold what the letter T has up its sleeve.

 

40 re-purposed?

Brought to you by the letter O.

Welcome back!  And thank you for your sweet birthday wishes yesterday. 

So did you try out some of the downloads?  And did you notice that a few of the designers stopped by and left comments?  How fun!

 Let’s get right to today’s topic.

O is for Old: Making the Most of What You Paid for in 2007

While it’s true that I don’t feel old despite turning 40, I have to admit that sometimes my scrapbooking supplies can feel that way.  In an industry where there’s a lot of change and fresh product, we can (mistakenly) believe that our layouts will look too dated if we use paper or embellishments that have been in our stash for more than a year or two.

It’s really not true!  In most cases, if you bought it, that means you really liked it, and I’m guessing that you probably still do.  In fact, you may have intentionally held on to it and wouldn’t dream of purging it because you like it so much.  (Chatterbox paper is one example for me.)  So use it!

Even members of our Write. Click. Scrapbook. team like to pull out product that they’ve had for a while. 

Beth counts Kaleidoscope by My Mind's Eye (2005) as one of her favorite paper lines of all time.

This one’s from Jamie, using some sweet old American Crafts and KI Memories.  Remember Love, Elsie?

 

Aussie Jody shares, “These 2 layouts were created with my endless stash of BasicGrey. As much as I love their new releases, I still have a little supply of their earlier releases because it just works well with my style.”

Erin saw the wisdom in holding on to paper she likes that’s specific to a holiday. No making a trip to the store just for paper to create one layout.

This layout that I made uses My Mind’s Eye Wild Asparagus and a Prima flower from one of the original “milk bottles.”

And check out the Scrapworks rub-ons and the ancient KI Memories on this one!  (Oh, but it’s still one of my favorite papers.  I save every scrap from Collection IV.  Sigh.)

I spotted this one in the W.C.S. Flickr pool. Jennifer Larson's use of the KI Memories Alphabet Soup acrylic letters could almost convince us that they just debuted at Winter CHA, rather than five years ago.

It wasn’t too painful seeing all those layouts using product that’s so yesterday, now was it?

If you’re motivated to create a page using supplies that have been in your stash for a while, please post it to the Flickr group and then leave a comment here so that we can applaud you and be inspired ourselves!

Until tomorrow, when the letter R will bring us something extra fun…

  (Actually, in my state it would be 36.80 plus tax, but who’s counting.)

Brought to you by the letter F.

I had a birthday yesterday.

I wasn’t feeling old until a friendly barista asked me on Thursday what my weekend plans were, and upon hearing I’d be 40 on Sunday, exclaimed, “Oh! My mom turns 40 next week!”

Excuse me?  Your mom? 

(Since my oldest is barely nine, it’s easy to forget that I celebrated my 21st birthday just three weeks after my own mom turned 40.)

While I don’t feel “over the hill” (and according to current life expectancy calculators, have not even started to crest it), I’m reflecting more than usual on how to intentionally make the most of my time, my faith, my family, and my resources, just to name the most important things. 

So what does that have to do with scrapbooking?  Well, I believe that for us creative types, fresh inspiration can come when we adopt a make the most of philosophy.  So that’s what we’ll explore this week, using the acronym FORTY as our guide. Slick, huh?  Let’s begin!

F is for Freebies: Making the Most of Your Budget

Let’s face it.  In a difficult economy, it becomes vital to categorize our needs and our wants. If you find yourself in a place where you have curtailed shopping for the latest and greatest releases (whether by choice or by force), you needn’t feel like you’re without new & inspiring supplies.  There are generous people all over this wonderful worldwide web who design free goodies for people just like you!  Isn’t that cool?

Today I will share some of my favorites, all of which can be printed and used on a page.  Just click on the images for more information and download instructions. (Perhaps you’ll take a minute to leave the designer a note of thanks. :)  Enjoy!

                     

                     

(Psst... I just made the connection that the fabulous sets of journaling spots shown above were all designed by W.C.S. reader Avital Gertner, one of the most faithful contributors to our Flickr Group.  Isn't she amazing?  Thank you, Avital!)

              

 

 

(Avital again.  Houndstooth!  The thumbnail doesn't do it justice, so click.)

 

(When you click, you won’t see it at first, because you must create an account at Designer Digitals to download freebies. Either print or use this one digitally.)

 

(Cathy Z has a download for "a year of tags."  Use one tag as a journaling spot, print an entire month and make a mini album, choose a number and make a tag for that same date each month throughout the year... or whatever.)

 

For you fellow lovers of all things vintage, here are some fun images—a few of them designed, others scanned and shared because they are old enough to have become public domain.

  

 

 

(You’ll find a Photoshop brush of this as well.)

And one more really exciting freebie, in case you haven’t heard.  The Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop actions are now available for PSE 5-8.  Woohoo!  Go here for more info.

 

Come back tomorrow to see what the letter O brings!

P.S. I couldn’t resist throwing in these bonus non-scrapbook-related printables.  Those of you with children on spring break may particularly appreciate the last one. :)

Laundry

Photo by Tina Cockburn

Start to finish week - Your comments and layouts!

I want you all to know how much I've appreciated your comments and participation this week. I've had a great time. A couple of you created layouts this week and posted them in our flickr gallery, so I'll highlight those here, and I also want to respond to a few of the comments from the week. 

By the way, if you have a couple spare minutes, read through the comments from giveaway day on Thursday – there are some great pieces of advice and hilarious kid stories in there.

Let’s start off with this comment from ~M~:

The hard part of "design" for me is what no one ever talks about, which is picking paper and positioning accents. Everyone seems to think this is the "fun" or "easy" part. I find picking photos and writing journaling really fun and easy, even deciding where to put photos is easy... but picking what paper and what accents and HOW the journaling will go on the page, that is a killer. That can take me hours and require a special trip to the store just trying to get AN IDEA, ANY IDEA!!! aaahhh! But no one ever talks about how to make THAT easy.

~M~, I definitely feel your pain. I will sit at my desk and pull sheet after sheet of paper out to try to figure which ones to use. And I usually try about 15 different embellishments and end up using only one or two. Here are my thoughts on your dilemma:

1 – Focus on your strengths. It sounds like you’re like me—I’m good at writing journaling and deciding where things should go. But I have a terrible time mixing patterned papers, and an even harder time adding embellishments—so I focus on making my journaling really interesting and my design really eye-catching, then I do a minimum amount of paper-choosing and embellishing. 

2 – Go with what works. I probably start 85% of my paper layouts on white or dark brown cardstock. I just really like the impact those colors make, so I don’t worry about the fact that I use them over and over. It’s more important to me that I enjoy scrapbooking than that every page looks perfect. Once you know what basic colors you like, figure out what color combos you like. I love brown/turquoise/red, and I use it a lot. I try to buy papers that fit into the color schemes I use often, and then store them together. That way I can pull out three or four papers that I already know will work together. Using kits is another great time-saver: different papers that coordinate are already packaged together, often with embellishments that work as well.

3 – Don’t ever go to the store in the middle of a layout. The store is only going to give you more options and make it harder to decide what should go on your page. A better way to get ideas is to browse a gallery or magazine for inspiration, then see what you already have that might be similar.

4 – Consider your journaling a "design block", just like we did with pictures Wednesday. You can actually print the journaling onto a different color of cardstock and use that as a block that you move around with your pictures until you decide where you want it to go. It doesn’t have to be something special that takes a lot of time to figure out; it can just be another piece of the puzzle.

Great comment! Let’s take a look at some layouts now, shall we? This one is from Cathy S, and I love how she mixed those different patterned papers. She followed the directions, using a block of photos and placing the journaling and title nearby, then added a larger focal photo to make the connection between then and now. I love the journaling!

 

Time for another comment from a reader, this time from Lindsay Jones, who says:

I love being a mom and would love to hear more from Autumn about how she finds the time to create beautiful pages for her kids and family. I love her style and perspective.

Another good question! First, I am lucky enough that I don’t have to work outside the home. Those of you who do have my heartfelt admiration, and I can’t imagine I’d be able to get as much done if I also had a job to go to every day. That being said, my 21-month old is a bit of a terror (as you all know by now) and I can’t really do any scrapbooking while he’s awake, so a couple things have been very important for me to find time to scrapbook. 

1 - My kids are on a pretty strict nap and bedtime schedule. We all get up early (6:30), which means all the kids are ready for bed by 8 o’clock. That means I have a couple of hours every night when they’re all tucked in and sleeping (the older ones stay up and read for a while, but they’re still in bed) to spend time with my husband and work on stuff for myself. 

2 - During the day, I try to do everything I possibly can (house-work, errands, dinner prep, etc.) while my littlest is awake, so that when he naps I can use that time for whatever I want (usually scrapbooking or reading). Even when my three oldest were 3, 1, and 1, I would give them baby wipes and have them “help” me clean the bathroom, or let them “help” load the dishwasher, or fold laundry, or whatever. Of course, it takes you three times as long to do anything when you have little helpers, but I figure when they’re awake they pretty much take all my attention anyway, and if I can get the chores out of the way when they’re up, I’ll have more time to myself when they’re asleep. It works pretty well. 

3 - Finally, I have a very healthy appreciation for both Baby Einstein and PBS Kids, and I’m ok with letting the kids watch a moderate amount of TV during the day so I can get other things done.

Alright, another layout.This is from Monika Wright, and I love the journaling on this one, too. What a great tribute to her mom! Monika put her photos in a square instead of a lining them all up, and it works perfectly here. And that quote block is about the cleverest thing I've seen in a long time!

 

And one more comment and response. This is from Melanie K, who says: 

Okay, at this point, with three boys between 6 and 20 months, not a lot seems funny. But the quote that keeps me (somewhat) sane ... this too shall pass. And then you will be wishing for that time back.

This comment really took me back to when my twins were babies and my older son was two. Wow, was that a whole lot of work! And frankly, the rewards seemed pretty slim sometimes. This was when I first created my own mini book on being a mom, because I really needed to remind myself why I loved motherhood. And then that time did pass. And I can already feel, with my oldest about to turn nine, the little pangs of regret that those early days are gone forever. I think what I miss the most is that when they were tiny, those boys were mine. All mine. Even though it sometimes felt like each day lasted forever, the day belonged to us and we weren’t busy getting to school and soccer and scouts—the day just belonged to us and no one else. I will freely admit that life is so much easier now they are older, and I enjoy it more on a regular basis. But my big almost-nine-year-old doesn’t belong to me the way he used to. He’s starting to belong to himself, which is just how it should be, but it still makes me a little sad.

Our last layout today comes from Ashleigh Bronner. I really like how Ashleigh's journaling starts with the "action" of the story - specifically a conversation between her kids. And she used a photo from a few months before the journaling was written - but it look great, doesn't it?

 

Thanks again for your participation this week! It’s been a busy week for me, but I have just loved checking my posts all day long and reading your comments. I think I’ll feel lonely next week when it’s back to me and James on our own during the day ☺

Remember: scrapbook because you enjoy it, not because you think you should.

Start to finish week - Finish and Flickr!

Our layouts are nearly done - we have the journaling complete, the photos printed, and the basic design decided. Today it's time for some finishing touches and uploading to the flickr group. The amount of "finishing" you decide to do on a layout will largely reflect your own scrapbooking style. I usually only use one or two embellishments on each layout. I just have a hard time getting things right if I try to make myself use more. I love looking at layouts that have a great mix of embellishments - but it's just not my style, so I don't try to force it.

Your instructions for today:

1) Add the date somewhere on your layout - I love finding different ways to make the date itself an embellishment. Whether your scrap digital or paper, try to find a way to incorporate the date that's a little more interesting than just jotting it down on the back of your layout.

2) Add something with round edges - like a circle embellishment, a flourish, a swirl, a strip of patterned paper that uses dots, etc. When your photos are all lined up in a row, it's important to include something circular so the layout doesn't end up looking too blocky.

That's it! Add more embellishments if you you wish, but don't feel like you need to. Here's my finished layout from this week:

The journaling doesn't match the photos, the design is simple, and I didn't spend that much time on it. And I love it. I can't wait to see yours! Please upload them to flickr ASAP - I want to showcase as many as I can in tomorrow's post. If you could please leave a comment here and in the Flickr gallery mark your layout, "Autumn's Challenge," then I will be able to easily find it!

Well, we're just about finished. Except for the super-exciting tip for the day. It doesn't have anything to do with scrapbooking, but I'm pretty happy about it. Here goes: Whipping up a batch of cookie bars takes just 30 minutes start to finish and they taste just as good as actual cookies. Better even, if you use the recipe I'm going to share. And there's no standing around waiting for the cookie sheets to cool before you can scoop out the next bunch!

Here's my favorite cookie bar recipe. It's purloined in its entirety from Mel at melskitchencafe.com. I love her website. Let me tell you why I like this recipe so much - I've been on a quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. My problem was this: really good tasting cookies are made with all butter, but they tend to spread and get too flat. Really good looking cookies are made with shortening, but they're just missing that real butter taste. I looked and looked for a solution (butter flavored shortening was suggested, but frankly shortening in all it's I-don't-melt-at-room-temperature glory grosses me out a little). And then I found these bars. Full of yummy real butter, but trapped in a pan with nowhere to spread! Perfect taste and consistency. I just love them. Have I said that enough times yet?

So here you go. Reward yourself for finishing a great layout this week. And if you've discovered the secret to perfect chocolate chip cookies and it doesn't involve shortening, let me know!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Bars

adapted from 24 Hour Menu

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup oatmeal (use quick oats for a more traditional tasting choc chip cookie, whole rolled oats for more of an oatmeal cookie taste)

3/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (you can use all brown if you're feeling frisky - I do :)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla (feel free to double this for a richer result)

12 ounces semi sweet chocolate chunks (I use chips, not chunks, and cut it down to 1 1/2 cups - and that's not 'cuz I don't love chocolate, it's just 'cuz I love the cookie taste so much I don't want the chocolate to overpower things, you know?)

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Beat butter, sugars, egg and vanilla till fluffy and add dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chunks. Press into a greased 9×13 inch pan and bake for 18-20 minutes until light golden brown. I have also doubled the recipe and pressed into a large sheet pan (11X17) with great results. (I always bake for just 18 minutes or until lightly golden - they are not nearly as good if they are overbaked.)

Be sure to check back tomorrow - the post will be full of YOUR layouts, as well as some of YOUR comments and my responses!

and the giveaway goes to . . .

Your comments were incredible. Reflections of the delight and silliness of raising a brood. And many of you are without  fairy princesses to balance the testosterone. Brave ladies!

Here are our three lucky numbers and their comments:

 

Congratulations ladies! What great fortune to get to participate in Autumn's class. Thank you, too, to Big Picture Scrapbooking, for donating the classes to our fine readers. Sandy, Christina, and Kari, please email your contact information to us at writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com by midnight Saturday!

Stay tuned for Autumn to help put the final touches on our challenge layouts!

give.away.day. featuring BIG PICTURE SCRAPBOOKING & AUTUMN

If you've been enjoying the posts this week, you will be thrilled for our

Autumn has a brand new class at Big Picture Scrapbooking class, On Being a Mom. The self-paced instant download class is designed to help you quickly and easily complete a 6"x6" board book all about your experience as a mother. In her welcome audio message, Autumn will relate some of her experiences as a mother of four little boys, and share with you how her admitting that motherhood can be difficult has made it all the more rewarding for her. Then the class is broken into three parts: journaling, design, and assembly. Autumn will provide you five writing exercises to help you get your thoughts down on paper, then teach you to use the included Microsoft Word templates to quickly design your book, and finally, walk you the assembly of your book. In the end, you will have a treasured collection of your thoughts on being a mom. 

Not just one lucky number will be drawn. No, for this special event, there will be three. If you would like to be considered for a chance to take Autumn's class for free, simply leave us a comment telling us a funny anecdote about your mothering or your mother's mothering, or just something you love about Autumn and how easy she makes it feel.

Comments will remain open until 8:00 pm PST. Three numbers will be selected at random and posted tomorrow. Don't forget it is your responsibility to check back before Saturday to see if you were one of the lucky ones!

Start to finish week - Design

So, some of you guys have your smarty-pants on today, and you've figured out my announcement. I am very excited to tell you guys that I have an instant download class available right now at Big Picture Scrapbooking! Hop on over there to see it, or check back here tomorrow for more info and GIVEAWAY DAY!

Alright, we have journaling and photos ready, and we're on to design. Design is usually the most time-consuming part of putting together a layout for me. But I’ve found that if I start with an idea of where the photos should go I can get things put together much more quickly. Your instructions for today are to figure out where the basic elements on your page are going to go (don't try to finish the layout today, just figure out where photos, title, and journaling go). Use these three guidelines:

1) Line all your photos up side-by-side in a long line across your layout.

2) Use a large photo mat behind all your photos to unify them into a block.

3) Find a spot for your title and a spot for your journaling near your photo block.

Using these three guidelines should help you start getting the bones of your layout figured out quickly because they limit your options a little bit, which brings me to the super-duper tip for the day: The best way to scrapbook faster is to eliminate some of the decision-making involved. This might mean you start with a sketch or guidelines like the ones above so you don't have to make so many decisions about where to place items. Or it might mean you pull out a few different sheets of paper and embellishments to begin with and limit yourself to using only those. And it definitely means you can let go of the tiny decisions that you might agonize over for half an hour, like whether the title would look better in blue than brown. Just pick one and keep going (you can always change it later if you end up really needing to).

So, back to our guidelines. They'll help you design faster because your options are limited a bit, but that certainly doesn't mean your creativity will be limited. The same guidelines can yield vastly different results. For example, here's my layout that I've been working on this week with you. Seven photos printed out as wallets lined up across the two pages. A photo mat behind all the pictures that unifies them into a block. Title right above on one side, journaling right above on the other side. Basic, quick, and looking pretty good (if I do say so myself). Now, this layout isn't quite done - I need to decide on a title and add some finishing touches, which we'll get to those on Friday. But the bones are there and it didn't take me all that long.

Here's another example layout that follows our guidelines. Again I used wallet-size photos, but this time I only used two. The photos are together on a mat, making a block, and the title and journaling are close by. But by setting all of these components on top of a piece of scallop edge paper, this layout becomes much more organic looking and different from the more linear version above. It's still a simple design that came together fairly easily.

Here's a third example. This time I used two 4x6 photos on a landscape page. You'll notice I didn't use a mat behind the photos, but I did use patterned paper strips to separate the photos from the rest of the page, so they still act as a block, or a single design unit. When your pictures are all one design unit, you don't have to decide what to do with each one individually (we're back to limiting our options to save ourselves some time). I also moved the title a little further away from the photo block, which you can do if you like. Of course, once you move it away from the pictures, you end up with more options of where it can go, which might take more time (but if you're not in a rush, go for it).

And here's a fourth example. I gave myself twenty minutes to put this together. This layout obviously isn't finished: I need a title, I'll probably rewrite the journaling to include a little more detail, and it needs some finishing touches, but the design basics are there:

Ready to design? Get working! Don't forget to check back tomorrow for giveaway day!

PS - feel free to leave me a comment telling me either: a) that I really didn't look like a boy when I was a baby (although I'll know you're lying just to be nice), or b) that my boys are about the cutest kids you've ever seen, or c) how I can possibly get through to the weekend without eating treats. Thanks!

Start to finish week - Photos

Well, most of you seem to think I'm adding a fifth hooligan to the bunch. Alas, that's not my announcement. Lets keep guessing though, just for fun. Here's a couple clues:

1) It is scrapbook related

2) It has something to do with yesterday's post

Any new guesses?

Thanks to those of you that left great comments yesterday - I'm glad to know the journaling tip was useful for you. Writing exercises (like the one in yesterday's post) are one of the best ways to get out of a journaling rut.

So we're on to photos today. I have two super-duper tips for today, both dealing with photos. The first is my very favorite photo tip (which also happens to be my very favorite journaling tip): your pictures and your journaling DO NOT HAVE TO MATCH. The pictures don’t have to be taken on the day the story happened. The journaling doesn’t have to be about what’s actually taking place in the photos. The story and the pictures should probably be of the same person and have the same general feel (happy words like happy faces and so forth), but that’s it! They don’t even have to from the same time period. Honest. It works. Take a look at today’s example layouts for proof.

The pictures in this layout show Jack and James blowing bubbles together, but the journaling talks about other sorts of things they do together. It's not an exact photo/journaling match, and it doesn't matter. The people match, and the feel of the photos and journaling match, so that's good enough.

For this next layout, I had a great picture of Carter I wanted to use, but not much to say about it, except that he's cute, and that's already apparent in the picture :) So instead I wrote about his developing personality.

Neither of these layouts tells the story of what was happening when the pictures were taken, but they still work. My story for this week's layout is about my youngest coloring all over the walls while I finished watching LOST (and any episode featuring Sawyer is definitely worth finishing - who's tuning in tonight with me? Let's find out what's up with Richard, aka Guyliner!) But, back to the point, I didn't take any pictures of the colored wall. So I'm going to use pictures like this one, of said youngest boy watering my plants. And no one will care that my journaling and pictures don't match and didn't happen on the same day.

Your instructions for today are to rustle up some pictures that happen to feature the same person who stars in your story from yesterday. Or grab your camera and take a few. For this week’s layout you will need exactly one, two, three, four, or more photos, so make sure you get that many, and get those puppies printed and all ready for tomorrow. The only requirement is that all the photos should be vertical, and all the same size, either 4x6 or smaller (if you want to use more than four photos for an 8.5x11 spread or six for a 12x12 spread, I recommend printing wallets).

Like I mentioned, I have one more super-duper photo tip for you:

Most photographs can be quickly improved with a bit of brightening and contrast boosting. It’s extremely easy and can make a big difference in how your photo looks once printed out.

You need some sort of photo processing program that allows you to make changes on your photo’s histogram. That’s this funny picture:

Photoshop Elements lets you access this using the levels command (control L). iPhoto (which you have if you’re lucky enough to own a Mac) lets you access it using the edit>adjustments buttons. Other editing programs will let you do it as well - you'll just have to figure out how to get to your histogram. 

The histogram shows you what looks like a mountain range. The left side of the mountains represents the dark in your photo (shadows) and the right side represents the light (highlights). A picture that’s well exposed that has a good variety of light it in will have a histogram that shows the "mountains" extending all the way from the left to the right, like the example up above.

However, often your histogram may show the "mountains" all bunched up in the middle, or bunched up near the left side, like this:

The picture above is underexposed: highlights and midtones aren’t very bright, so there's not a lot of contrast between the light areas and dark areas of the photo. This makes the picture look kind of blah, and when you print it out, it will look even darker than what you see on your screen, since monitors are generally fairly bright. 

To fix a picture like this one, grab the rightmost slider, which is for highlights, and pull it toward the left, until it hits the slope of the mountain (red arrow in the example). This will brighten your highlights. Grab the middle slider (for midtones) and pull it to the left as well, until skin tones look bright and beautiful (blue arrow). Then grab the leftmost slider and pull it back to the right until it hits the mountain on this side (yellow arrow). This will darken the shadows. 

Each picture is different, so you may want to play with the sliders a little to get the best look. In the above picture, I brought the shadows slider in a little past where the mountains to begin to give more definition to the shadows. You can experiment a bit and still spend less than 90 seconds on this step. Here’s the before and after:

The "after" picture will print much brighter and end up looking a lot better than the "before." Take a minute to improve the photos you want to use, and get them printed out. Come back tomorrow and we’ll start getting this layout together!