by Ethan Johnson
January 28, 2008

The Layout A Day Challenge is coming to an end at Big Picture Scrapbooking. The objective is to create one layout per day through the month of January. I've managed to keep up with the rigors of daily production. These are the next 7 layouts (out of 31).

Day Twenty-Two: Off

For whatever reason, I was inspired to go take another look at the Dullest Blog in the World (no, seriously). For yuks, I decided to shoot a series of photos that corresponded to one of the entries. Mere moments later, I has a completed layout for the day. I issued a challenge of sorts to the rest of the LOAD faithful, and some amazing, creative works appeared in the gallery for days afterward. As I told the LOADers on the message board: Get dull, and get done!

Day Twenty-Three: Been There, Done That

This was the result of connecting the dots: I had a photo of one of the signs outside of my old community college, plus a textbook still on the bookshelf, plus a shirt in the closet from a recent visit. I decided to make a "hybrid" layout by typing on the photos in GIMP (kinda like Photoshop but not) before printing them. I was going to add a journaling strip but decided to go with the magazine ad look instead.

Day Twenty-Four: Petey Loves Her Rocky

I was going to make the ultimate Petey-centric layout (Petey is our youngest dog), but I was being way too aggressive with the concept and had to tone it down. Looking at the mound of photos that I printed, I found a narrative running through a few, including a recent shot of Petey "kissing" Rocky - who took her under his wing from the early going right when it was looking grim for her being accepted by the other dogs. Usually Rocky grooms Petey, which I so need a shot of, but it was kismet that I caught her "kissing" her guardian and him giving the puppy smile face.

Day Twenty-Five: Spicy Chicken Patties

Rinnng... rinnnng... hello, it's me phoning it in. Face it, daily production means that not everything is going into the Smithsonian, okay? Just the same, I figured I might as well commemorate the fact that I am overdosing on spicy chicken patties these days. Good thing I'm not over them yet, or what else would I eat?

Day Twenty-Six: This Was

Since the previous day was such a phone-in job, I spent more time and effort on this one. Someone had a message board post about the changes that kids today can't truly appreciate from the point of view of anyone over 30. I took the idea and ran with it, and ended up with a computer-themed layout about what certain terms meant to most of us in 1978. Check out the larger version here.

Day Twenty-Seven: 1976

Still stuck in the 1970s, apparently. I found some photos from just after my brother was born, and I thought back to my life at that time. I received a lot of feedback about how "sad" this layout was. It was supposed to have a glimmer of hope in there. See what happens when you rush?

Day Twenty-Eight: Quote

Another rush job. It's OK, though... I was wanting to experiment with pairing a quote with a photo without any other journaling. This is a bit too unfinished for me, but hey, it got me through the day.

Lessons learned:

• I can do this! Really really really!
• You're not going to like everything you create. But there is value in creating.

Onward to the finish line! <EM>

(Want more scrapbooking articles? The full list may be found here.)