Whew, what a winter! I know for many of you, spring began on or before March 21st but bear with me please. As a northern girlie I am finally getting to breathe in and feel those golden sun rays I’ve been so deprived of for the last 6 months. I feel like the return of pleasant weather truly is a milestone this year and I invite you to join me in my celebration!

When you scrapbook, do you save the party hats, balloons and confetti for the special occasion layouts? Maybe it feels like those are far and few between these days and you’re feeling left out of all the great projects we’ve seen so far with this collection. Let’s embrace our everyday moments and intentionally capture the best of them.

I started preparing for this layout by making a list of my favourite things about spring. This is a low-pressure activity designed to get your creative juices flowing, no wrong answers. In fact, after I wrote this list, I realized many of them would be hard to photograph or just wouldn’t be pretty to look at.

Pick a topic from your list as a jumping off point and then spend a day (or maybe even a week) capturing the photos that support it. For me, I chose to zero in on outdoor time working on my ongoing garden projects. I was afraid winter was especially hard on my plants this year. My area is officially a Zone 3b but our yard is unsheltered and windy so I’m learning my best success is with Zone 2 plants. My big win this year was how many of my new plants from last year survived and showed signs of life!

I went on a tour of my yard, photographing proof of success as I went. Then, I switched tasks to some maintenance and took photos of that too. I made sure to take a selfie, because it’s important to have me in my scrapbooks too! At this point, I had a bunch of pictures, an idea of celebration, and a scrapbook layout to create.

This year, I’m creating in a 6x8 album format. I had an idea for a vertical title that I used as my design jumping off point. You may also have brainstormed a single word or short phrase that would lend itself well to a large format title.

Next, I added in my photos. At first glance, it might not seem like there’s a lot of life in my photos. Springtime on the prairie isn’t always as vibrant in photos as I would like it to be. But, this layout is about celebration so I’m going to add in the life of the party with balloon stickers and confetti. I also added in a journal card and word bit from the Story Foundations Core collection.

My journaling finished off this layout and draws out the true celebration so that when I look back on this layout I’ll remember not just a day in my garden but the feelings that this day had for me this year and why it was a special occasion in its own right.

Thank you for joining me in an exploration of turning everyday moments in milestones to be celebrated. I hope you’ve been inspired and have so much fun creating!