When I got the idea, I grabbed my phone and started loading photos into a January folder to print out.  I specifically went for pictures that I didn't think I would immediately get to for scrapbooking or for that matter, I might never get to. I also looked for stories that just had one picture - it's easier to tell a story when there are multiple photos for the layout - so if I only had one they defaulted to this folder. I printed them all off in a 2 X 3 format and all in black and white.  Black and white allowed me to keep the colors uniform without taking away from the story.  The very first step then in my layout was to lay all pictures out in a grid.  As you can see I trimmed some down further into a 2 X 2 square.

 

 

Knowing that I would have a lot of pictures on the layout, I knew I needed to keep my embellishing to a minimum. With that in mind, I decided to use one of the pieces from the 6 X 8 pad as a focal point.  I fussy cut the snowman/oval picture from that paper pad and added that above my picture collage.  I accented that with some enamel dots on limited snowflakes. 

 

 

The Journaling Bits package came with a variety of journaling spots.  I tucked these in under the top of the picture collage making a backdrop for my journaling. Rather than handwrite my journaling or write it in story format, I opted to print out a list of what the pictures were of.  Then I cut them out and added them to the tags. 

 

 

I wanted to create a subtitle that featured the month.  I fussy cut this out of the cut apart cards patterned paper. As I created my picture collage I intentionally left a space to add my subtitle.  I filled that space with washi tape and then added my January.  A few embellishments, including stickers from the 4 X 6 sticker book and Decorative Brads, adorn it as well.

 

 

I felt a major sense of accomplishment in doing this layout. So much of that month's story is told!!! My plan from here is to follow a format pretty similar to this making coming up with each month's page even easier.  If you'd like to check out the whole process video for how this came together you can find it here:

 

Thanks so much for popping in today and be sure to share with us how you are making the "Best Year Ever" collection work for you!