Credits: Chocolate Parfait Collection by Jennifer Barrette

One thing you will notice about my layout style, is that I'm not big into journaling, meaning that there is rarely a lot of words to tell the story in my layouts.  Since I print out and put my layouts into frames, I want them to visually tell the story without a person having to read the text.  It really depends on the event though.  If I am not wanting to really document something that happened, then there is usually a title some where on the layout with a small amount of text, or no text at all.

For the layout above, I wanted to simply create a layout that showcased the many faces of my daughter.  I loved the photos so much that I really wanted them to be the focus and let the person who viewed the layout know quickly that the layout was about daughter and that no matter what pose she decides to give me for the camera, she is always my sweet girl. 

However, there are times when I journal my heart out, and those are for events that I really want to document and not forget the events.

The above layout was created December 2005, after my daughter decided to see what would happen if she put her electronic train on her hair, with the wheels moving.  This is a day I definitely wanted to document and never forget!

The journaling reads:

Mother shocked to find train attached to daughters head.

Toddler responds by smiling at the camera.
By Stacy Carlson

Nebraska - Early in the morning of December 12, while taking down curtains so that the contractor could finish installing her new windows, Mrs. Carlson heard a cry coming from the basement.

Emerging from the basement was her three and a half year old daughter, Shaylee. This typically happy little girl was anything but happy this time though. On this Monday morning, she had taken the joys of playing with trains one step to far.

I seems that Shaylee, while playing with a motorized train, turned the train on and held it up to her hair. The rotating wheels quickly caught her fine blonde hair and wrapped the hair tightly around it's axle, pulling little tufts of hair out and making it near impossible to pull the hair back out.

Officials state that Mrs. Carlson quickly assessed the situation and determined that the child was not in any harm or further pain. Upon doing so, Mrs. Carlson left the room and grabbed her camera, knowing that this was simply to good of a scrapbook layout opportunity. Mrs. Carlson is quoted as saying "How could I not take a picture of this?!"

After taking the needed photos, Mrs. Carlson called her husband and let him in on what was happening, and then called the local barber's, knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to get this train out of her daughters hair. Of course the barber's office found the call incredibly funny, perhaps even a hoax. However, the idea it was a hoax was quickly dispelled when Mrs. Carlson walked into a packed barber shop with her daughter on her hip and a train on her daughters head.

Joe, the barber, gave Shaylee a lollipop, placed her in a chair and quickly got to work with the removal of the train. Shaylee was a brave little girl and only gave one little whimper during the entire train removal operation. In the end, no hair had to be cut and no train had to be harmed and mom, daughter and train left the shop all in one piece!

"I've learned that life doesn't need you to make things up to make it exciting. Just wait ten minutes and your child will provide all the excitement you could possibly desire." Mrs. Carlson said with a smile.

Ain't that the truth!

No matter what your journaling (or lack of) style is, digital scrapbooks really help to document the memories in your life and tell wonderful stories.  My daughter loves to sit down and look through all the layouts I've created, seeing all the pictures and hearing me tell her the stories behind them.  She's only six, so I can only imagine the fun (and embarrassing) it will be to her to look at these layouts when she's 16 or 30.

Until next week! 

Stacy

The first layout was created using Jennifer Barrette's Chocolate Parfait Collection which can be purchased here at AnnTheGran.