Digital Scrapbook Page for Layout a Day

Saturday was February 1st and the beginning of another month-long Layout a Day (LOAD) challenge.  I have completed one full month (last May) but a couple of other times I started and wasn't able to keep it up for the entire month.  This time I am trying for the full month again!

Each day there is a prompt to help you get started on a page.  The theme for the month is "Mythbusters" - taking aim at some of the things that you "have to do" when scrapbooking ... or maybe not!  For this challenge we were supposed to bust the myth that pages have to be about something "big" like a vaction or holiday and make a page that tells a story that might not otherwise be told.

Campbell, our younger son, loves root beer.  A few years ago, his older brother, Will, called from California to make sure I would be home to accept a delivery.  He had ordered a case with 24 different bottles of root beer from all over the country to be sent to our house for Christmas.

The surprise worked out perfectly - the box of root beer arrived on schedule and was kept out of sight.  The root beer was enjoyed over a stretch of many weeks and months.  Eventually the bottles were all empty and stashed in the original case. Where they sat...and sat...and sat.

The bottles had interesting labels and designs.  One day, three years later, in a fit of "let''s get this place cleaned up," we finally took the empties out of the carton.  I decided to photograph them so they could be recycled.

The sun was streaming in to the kitchen and I lined up the bottles to catch the beams in my photos.

I also took photos of each individual label.  This is one of my favorites - I always love a good pun or play on words!

I came across these photos and thought that the story was one that should be recorded.  The photos of the empty bottles were from last spring (2013) and they were the only ones that I used for this page.

I often start from a template page - even if it just to save time on placing the photos.  One thing that I have learned to do is to keep track of the papers, fonts, colors, embellishments and other details on the page.  This can be very helpful later if you want to make a similar page.  I keep all of this information in an extra text box outside of the page area so it is easy to refer back to it.  This page can just stay in the same file or I can move it if I am creating a book instead of page prints.

As you can see, the final page looks quite different than the page I started from.  Sometimes I end up deleting or hiding nearly everything from the first page.  I did keep the arrangement of the photos with a few minor tweaks and the placement of the title and journaling but I changed the fonts and added lots of small photos of labels in a row across the bottom of the page.

Here is a closer look at the journaling.  It says:

Will gave Campbell a crate of 24 different root beers - all from different places.  It took many weeks to sample them all.  At first Campbell and Lauren kept a tasting diary but eventually they gave up after declaring most of the bottles to be "minty."

This gift was very original and much appreciated but the story might not have been told if not for LOAD.  I took photos of the empty bottles last spring, before recycling them, but I hadn't done anything with them. Now I have recorded one of the many thoughtful things that our boys have done for each other.  After I finished the page, I looked for photos from the presentation of the gift on Christmas.  I may have to do a companion page to make this story complete.

I use Artisan software from Panstoria for my digital scrapping (and lots of other projects too).  This was formerly licensed to Creative Memories to sell but in the second bankruptcy reorganization CM discontinued digital.  Panstoria now sells the software directly to consumers, at a lower price.  I am no longer a CM consultant but I am an affiliate for Panstoria, which means I will earn a commission if you purchase using the links on my site (your price stays the same).  I appreciate it when people use my links as it helps to pay some of the costs of keeping the blog going - so thanks for clicking HERE or on the icons at the top left if you are interested in buying the software!  Historian is the photo editing and organization program (formerly Memory Manager when sold through CM) and Artisan (formerly known as StoryBook Creator) is the creative program for digital scrapping.

I hope you had a good weekend. Congrats to the Seattle fans on the Super Bowl -  my friend Leslie was at the game - it must have been fun to be there!  We may get more snow today - time to get crafting!

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