Hello and happy Saturday everyone! Zakirah here with the Saturday Special challenge. How’s your day going on? I hope y’all are having a great time with your family and friends. Today I wanna challenge you to interpret this ad as creatively as you can on your layout:

The rules for this challenge are simple. Use whatever kits you have, any colors you love, be creative, have fun, and enjoy yourself!

Post your layouts to the gallery by Friday midnight EST, May 2nd. And don’t forget to post your layout links at this thread too! I’ll pick 2 winners for this challenge, one lucky winner and another one my favorite. These winners will win $5 gift certificate to the ScrapMatters shop! Whoohooo!! Winners will be announced on Tuesday, May 6!

So back to the challenge. Here’s some suggestions on how you can get some inspiration from the ad:

• Apply the composition on your layout; look at how the image and text elements are arranged and positioned, and then apply this onto your page.

• Flip the ad and see it in different angles; 90 or 180 degrees, or even 230 degrees, it’s up to you. You may come up with diagonal, horizontal, or vertical layouts. It’s up to how you interpret and play with the composition. Be creative!

• Take the colors as inspiration. Pale red, maroon and black are the colors used on this ad. Take the palette as it is or interpret it in your own way: Use bright colored border, slightly dark paper for background, and a dark ribbon. ‘Read’ the colors and play it your way.

• Use a combination of thin and big shapes like in the ad. Play around with the shapes and make them help you to focus on the subject of your layout.

When looking at the ad, what inspires me the most is the composition and here’s how I interpret it:

Credits: All from Sunshine Digiscrap – Just For You & Joyful kits.

And here’s the layouts from the awesome ScrapMatters team! Man, they just blew me away with these creative layouts!!

Britt ~ I love how she interprets the composition of the ad! Britt uses GG Digital Design’s Sweet Pea kit.

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Leslie ~ I love how Leslie flipped the composition 90 degrees and came up with a horizontal layout! She uses Britt’s Leave The World Behind kit.

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Katie ~ Love the mixture of grey-ish and brown paper and the ‘A’!

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Stacy H. ~ Look how Stacy uses the red ribbon instead of paper! It makes her layout pops because of the contrast between the plain, textured paper and the polka dot ribbon. Very creative!

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Melanie ~ I really love how she placed the cluster at the bottom of the page!

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Sya ~ I’m so in love with the colors she used!! And look how she placed the cluster on the top with the scattered buttons on the white space – very creative!

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Linz ~ I really love how she interprets the composition. The hanging photo and cluster, the journaling, the title, everything is on the perfect place!

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So, are you ready to take the challenge? Hopefully you are, LOL. I’m sure y’all come up with amazing layouts!! Can’t wait to see them! Hope you have a creative-filled Saturday and have fun with the challenge!

Hi all!
Happy Scrap Girl here with another Photography Phriday post. 
It’s finally starting to be spring here where I live, and I’m so excited to be outside with my kids.  The fresh air is good for all of us, and it gets us all moving.  I’m excited to be able to take pictures out in the sunshine again (as opposed to my dark living room   ) 

I thought for today’s tips I’d talk a bit about outdoor photography. I’m not a pro photographer, but I’ve picked up a few tips along the way that even us amateurs can easily apply to get better pictures for our scrapbook pages.

• The best time of day to take your photos is in the early morning or late afternoon / evening.  The light is does not cause as many harsh shadows during this time of day.  But, it’s not usually possible to limit our photo sessions to just these times.  We really want to have great photos at any time of the day.  
• Turn on your flash!  I know it sounds silly to add more lights to an already sunny day, but when the sun is over head, it can cause harsh shadows in our photos, especially under eyes, noses and necks.  Turning on your flash will help to fill in these shadows and create more even lighting.   
• Try taking photos in a lightly shaded area of your yard.  The trees will provide a natural filter for the bright sunlight, and will help to reduce those dark shadows – a flash is still a good idea here.  Same goes for a cloudy day – the clouds help to filter the light for fewer shadows.
• Think about the position of the sun when you are setting up your shots.  While you may not want to pose the shots you are taking, you can situate yourself so that the sun is working with you, and not against you.  The sun should be behind the photographer so that it is lighting up the faces of the subject.  You don’t want to have your subject looking directly at the sun (you’ll get squinty smiles for sure), so have the sun at an angle behind you.  
• Don’t focus so much on the image in the viewfinder.  What you are seeing there has already happened.  Keep an eye on where the action is headed and anticipate what will happen next.  This is especially useful for taking pictures of moving toddlers or sports shots.  Snap your photo a second before the foot hits the soccer ball, and you’ll get a photo of it connecting with the ball.  If you push the button when you see the foot touch the ball, you’ll get a photo of the ball moving down the field…
• Pay attention to everything that will be in the background as well.  You may have a wonderful shot of your angelic 2 year old, that might be completely ruined by the branch sticking out from behind their head.  If you can’t change what is in the background try changing your camera settings to make the background a bit blurry and out of focus.  A portrait setting works well for this, as does zooming way in with your lens.  

These are a few of the things that have worked well for me.  Don’t be overwhelmed by them, just start by focusing on one or two of them and after a while, they will become automatic. 
Now get outside and take some pictures!