be AUDacious: Capture the Season Week 3

We're wrapping up week 3 -- can you believe it? -- of our Capture the Season workbook over at Simple Scrapper. I've really been enjoying this process; there's not the stress of completing a daily page (even in an album that was partially completed before December began) but I still feel like I'm capturing a large slice of my family's stories this holiday season.

I shared week 1 and week 2 with you; I'd like to share my thoughts on week 3, as well as the layout I created with this week's free template. This week contained a nice bit of time each day to do some scrapbooking, and since I had everything I needed to get this page finished, I went ahead and completed it. It came together so quickly -- 30 minutes or so -- and would've been even faster had I been able to decide which patterned paper to use.

JOURNALING:
This week's prompt focused on capturing journaling through quotes and other sources that give it to you straight from the horse's mouth:

Magic and children have long been intertwined during the holiday season. In medieval Germany, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw, or sugar, near the chimney for Odin’s flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. This tradition is thought to have influenced the modern practices of hanging stockings and leaving cookies and milk for Santa Claus and his reindeer. Capture the season through the eyes of special people in your life. Use candid, in-the-moment photos of your loved ones enjoying this special time of year. Share their stories through their own words.

Luckily for me, last weekend provided me with the perfect event to gather not just candid photos but also candid quotes at our Cooper family Christmas party. Each year, the party isn't complete until Santa (Uncle Dick) shows up in costume and, along with some volunteers, acts out "The Twelve Days of Christmas." This year, he was subjected to a good deal of heckling from the audience, which I made sure to jot down on a notepad I keep in my purse during a quiet moment a bit later on.

PHOTOS:
I used photos of both Santa and his "elves" acting out the 12 Days, as well as photos of the audience and their reactions to this performance. The grid design of the layout let me alternate these two types of photos, which helped me to tell my story more effectively too. I contemplated with converting them all to black and white, but decided to keep them in color for this layout. I liked the warm tones from the lamplight, and Santa looks particularly festive in his suit.

DESIGN:
Liz has been my go-to designer for this project, because so many of her kits mix and match so nicely. For this layout, as I mentioned earlier, I had a little trouble deciding on a patterned paper. I wanted something fairly whimsical, but I couldn't decide if polka dots or this more graphic design was what worked best. In the end, I preferred the multiple colors of this paper. I also chose to add a couple of layers to the template so that my journaling and title would have a plain background, and I got rid of the stitching in the original template. I love how easy it is to modify these templates and really make them your own.

Here's the final result:

credits: glitter heart (FreeBird kit by Lauren Reid); snowflake and joy button (Be Merry collab by TaylorMade Designs and Ashalee Wall); papers (Adorned kit by Paislee Press -- exclusive to Tiffany Tillman's 25 Days of Templates class)