by Debbie Hodge
How you get your pages scrapbooked is influenced by their content. At Get It Scrapped we’ve written about the challenges and opportunities for a variety of page types including: events, everyday life, travel, yourself, and leaving a record.
“Moments” pages are the ones that hold the photos, insights, and messages to others that compel you.
You’ll put your “stunners” (those over-the-top photos that might not have a particular accompanying story) as well as the thoughts and ideas you come back to again and again on these pages.
Here are 4 angles or approaches to scrapbooking “moments.”
1. scrapbook a “here and now” slice of life
Here Jana Morton captured several shots of her son swinging on monkey bars. She used several photos of this moment to capture the spirit of him RIGHT NOW when he is out playing.
- Jana says, “When I’m selecting photos for a page, I put a lot of thought into the mood I want the page to convey and I select photos accordingly. If I have a photo I love but it doesn’t fit the mood, I leave it out and use it on another random page. I wanted “Monkey Business” to be playful and happy. Some of the images are cropped close-up and others are farther away. I cropped them in various ways so that the viewer could see the details of his facial expressions as well as how my little monkey looked hanging from the tree.
Monkey Business by Jana Morton
2. scrapbook a “portrait” or character study
Make a scrapbook page that creates a portrait–in photo, mood, motif, color and words–of just who your subject is.
A successful portrait page conveys more than how your subject looks. Your journaling provides the opportunity for elaborating in words. Color, styling, and motif can contribute to the page’s mood, and, thus, the viewer’s perception of your subject when they see this portrait.
Tami Taylor used a series of journaling strips on this portrait of her son Zach and each holds a different bit of information of Zach at the moment. The bold colors and wide scalloped strips evoke an energetic mood.
Tami says, "This is one of my favorite photos of my son Zach. He had just played in a kiddie pool outside and Dad was wrapping him with a towel. I remember thinking how little he was and wishing he'd stay that way. I wanted to capture the memory of how small he was; so I had Dad put his hands on Zach's shoulders to show the difference in size between Dad's hands and Zach, I also got closer and took the photo looking down to enhance the perspective of him being smaller."
3. scrapbook a relationship
When you’ve got a photo of subjects interacting in a telling way, get it on the page and write down your perception of their relationship at this moment in their lives.
So much of what we appreciate in life comes out of personal relationships. Because relationships constantly evolve as the people in them grow and change, take the time to record just how you’re understanding a relationship in the moments you’ve photographed.
“This Moment” is a page from my oldest son’s 14th birthday. I did make additional pages that are “birthday-ish” but I also want to make this page that shows my husband and son looking at one another as my husband talked to him about the gift he was giving him was not only about pleasing my son– it was about my husband’s desire to spend quality time with my son as they learned together how to take care of and shoot guns.
. To scrapbook this relationship, I zoomed in on the faces of my subjects and I slowed down the journaling--telling of a brief moment in slower detail.
4. scrapbook a message
There are things we perceive and think about our loved ones that they would appreciate knowing both now and in the future. This kind of page is the perfect place for recording those messages.
Even if you think you’ve already told your subject something, go ahead and get it on the page. They’ll hear you in a new and different way when it’s thought-out, written down, and there to be reconsidered on future days.
“Shine On” shows a photo of my youngest son and husband a few days after major surgery my husband went through. The journaling begins with simple language and concrete details that make proclamations of love more impactful.
So, yes, of course I love my family, but when put in the context of health problems and next to a photo of a sunlit but tender time it resonates even more when I say it. What's more I don't just say that I love my family, I write about the situation sharing concrete details building up to the message.
Now it’s time for you to think about the photos or feelings that compel you and make a moment page.
