Laura Vegas

first, i’ll show you these four layouts … and then i’ll tell you why i did them last night. and i appologize for the so-so pictures of the layouts … i was trying to rush so that i could get this posted while the babies are sleeping!

so last week as i was organizing some of my albums … i came across an 8×10 creative memories album. apparently it was for daycare pictures. this was before i started actually making layouts with the daycare pictures … i think i started doing those after my first year. so i guess my idea was to make an album where each kid had their own section with their pics. only think is … all i had in there were 3-4 pictures on each page. no names, no journaling, no pattern paper, no nothing … just pics on white pages. and of course a ton of them were cut into circles and ovals … remember, this was from almost 6 years ago.

so i decided to tear out all the photos. tore them right off the pages … and tossed all the pages away. i didn’t want to just get rid of the photos … because these held memories for me and my girls from the kids that were here years ago. but i didn’t want to just file them away. and i didn’t want to spend a whole bunch of time on layouts … since honestly, these kids aren’t here anymore. we still see them, still talk to them, still keep in touch … but they’re not here all the time.

so i literally just grabbed one sheet of cardstock and started arranging the photos on there … working from the middle out. i was able to salvage some of the circles and ovals … i just had to trim them pretty tiny to get the straight edges. lol! and then i just dug out some chipboard letters for their names … and added a little bit of embellishments. these were actually hard for me at one point … the fact that i didn’t have any pattern paper on there was really throwing me off. but i like that they’re simple … and that they hold a good assortment of pictures from the time they were here. and i love that i got all 4 of them done in under 2 hours. and loved that i eliminated an entire album that really had no meaning … and now can just file these layouts away right in each kiddo’s section of our "friends" albums.

and remember, these pages won’t be side by side in an album … they’ll be in different sections. so just another reminder that when you find a good page design … use it for several layouts at the same time! it saves you creative energy when the design or sketch is already there … and you just have to switch up the colors or embellishments a little. and no one will notice when these pages are spread out in the albums in different spots. take the shortcuts when you can!