Article written using Photoshop Elements 11 and Windows 8
When I first started digital scrapbooking, I was overwhelmed with everything I had to learn, and as a result, my early pages are not my best, but that’s okay with me. I think it can be fun to browse through my files and see how far I have come and how much I have learned since the beginning. Occasionally, however, while I am taking my trip down Memory Lane, I come across a layout that I feel needs to be re-done. I try and resist this urge whenever possible; after all, I have about a zillion photos that are still waiting to be scrapped, so why would I spend the time re-doing the ones that have already been taken care of?
The big criteria for helping me decide if I should re-do a layout is whether or not the layout really tells the story behind the photos. If you have seen my layouts, you may already know that I am not the world’s greatest journaler. I seem to freeze up when it comes to telling the story behind the pictures on my layouts. I know, though, that the story is really what needs to be on the layout to make it complete. I was so worried about getting the technicalities “right” when I first started scrapping that the journaling step often got overlooked. Now, when I go back and look at my layouts, I try and make sure they really tell the whole story, and if they don’t, then that’s one that I will often re-do.
For this article, I chose to re-do the following layout:
The problems with this layout are many: the shadows are awful, the photos are unedited, and it’s really quite busy. Beyond those problems, however, is the bigger problem: it doesn’t tell the whole story. The blurb on the tag just mentions that my daughter took some photos of herself in the car while waiting for her brothers to get out of school. What it does not say is that this was a fairly common occurrence (still is) while waiting together, and it doesn’t list some of the other things we used to do while waiting for school to get out. There is a five-year age gap between my younger son and daughter, so there were a lot of days spent in the car waiting for the boys to get out of school. It’s nice to have a layout that remembers those days and tells a more complete story.
I started my re-do by finding a template that would help me position all those photos. I knew I needed one focal point, and I wanted the other photos to be smaller than they were in the original layout. I chose Kim Meeder’s ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 12×12 Get A-Round because I like the filmstrip look on the smaller photos, and because it gave me a definite focal point photo.
I edited my photos, something sadly lacking in the original, and added some fun, girly papers from Cindy Rohrbough’sGirlie Groove Collection Mini. Because I used several patterned papers, I didn’t use many embellishments, just tried to stick with a few whimsical items.
The final and most important step of this re-do was to just add a few more sentences of journaling to complete the story behind this layout.
We, as scrapbookers, are storytellers, and while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it never hurts to add a few sentences to make sure your story is complete. Do you have any layouts that need a little journaling update? Come share your layout re-dos with us in the Scrap Girls Gallery. If you find yourself stuck on a particular problem with your layout, come post a call for help in the Forum where we are always happy to give you some ideas!
Digital scrapbooking products used:
Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Digital Layout Album Templates: 12×12 Get A-Round, digiDoer Everyday: May Collection, ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Camera Time and ScrapSimple Tools – Styles: Bubbles and Glass 6301 are also available.
Article written by Melanie Cockshott