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Creating Keepsakes Magazine

 
 

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Main | Tips & Ideas | Contest | Enhancers | Topics | Layouts | Books

...Presents topics of our readers' layouts which have been intentionally "staged"


       I am staging an Easter Egg Coloring page with my grandkids.  I have already prepared the background page with cutouts and paper piecing. 
          -Nona Mitchell

       I can't believe you are actually asking to find out which ones are staged.  Now all my friends will find out the truth!  I had just got a teapot punch in at my store, and I had a four year old girl turning five.  She wanted a "swimming" birthday party, but I made her have a very formal proper "tea" with the fine ladies she hangs out with.  The whole party was great, and my pages turned out pretty good too. 
          -Sheila Kurtz

       I planned a St. Patrick's Day party for my 20 month old son  just to have a wonderful photo opportunity!  I found shamrock & leprechaun die-cuts, stickers and paper. 
          -Denise Faircloth

       Some of my favorite pages are "staged" ones that I've taken certain pictures to go with paper or stickers I've found.  I have two girls, nineteen months and three months.  I've taken pictures of them in several different matching outfits and did a layout in each of their books.  The baby's was titled "Cute as buttons" with button stickers to tie together; and the toddler's was done with dark blue paper with white stars and was captioned "A match made in heaven". 
          –Lori Olson, Indiana

       I have normally staged many of my photographs.  When I did an ABC book for my 3rd son I couldn't find anything that would go with the letter "F".  So, I baked cupcakes and loaded all the kids into the minivan and headed to our local fire station.  It was a great mini fieldtrip for my children and it gave me the opportunity to take snapshots of my children in all the firefighter gear standing near the truck  :) 
       Next, when I didn't have much money to spend on professional photographs for my newborn daughter, I dressed her in an angelic white dress and used all the fresh flowers that I received in the hospital (before they wilted) and cut the stems off. I laid her on my fluffy down comforter and placed the flowers around her. She looks so pretty and the pictures came out perfect!
       Last but not least, here is a mean one!  [LOL] Every baby I have had (4) has a picture of them eating a graham cracker and asleep in the highchair.  The first one was natural, but I must admit to letting my very tired babies suck on a graham cracker and fall asleep in the highchair just so I could take that picture.
           -Anonymous

       I "staged" two pictures of a sledding collision with my friends to finish a page.  We had spent the day sledding, but the camera was left in the car, so we staged a bunch of pictures before we left for home.  It was pretty funny! =0) 
          -Anna Bickel

       My husband thought I was nuts, but for Labor Day '98 when my daughter was 8-months old, I went out and bought a watermelon (even though we don't care for it much).  I put my daughter in her little red bathing suit and we packed our things and the cut up watermelon and went to the pool for the afternoon.  I sat her down on the ground with the pool to her back and gave her a slice of watermelon to chew on.  I took tons of pictures and they all turned out so great!  Well, with this, I was able to create a two page layout titled 'Slice of Summer' and I used DOTS® rubber stamps for the title and one of their watermelon stamps.  I even cut out my daughter and made it look like she was hanging over one of the stamped watermelon.  I used green, red, and white in my layout and it is one of my favorite layouts!  We had a great time that day! 
           -Pamela O'Connor , TX

       This Halloween, I staged photos with my two cats.   I placed one of my cats into a brown paper grocery bag and took a picture of him looking out of it.  I also took a photo of my other cat with its head in one of those orange, plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets kids used to carry around all the time.  For this one I had to place catnip in the bottom to keep his head in it long enough to take the photo.  My caption is "Hey, where's the treats?" 
          -Tiffany Alm

       I made a book to send to all my family for Christmas.  I dressed my children and their cousins up to tell the Christmas story.  We had shepherds, an angel, and Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus.  It was a lot of fun and everyone loved it.  I had four pages plus the front of the book to put pictures in.  I cut most of the people out and drew in the background.  I hope it will give people ideas for next year. 
          -Diana Sunde

       One set of photos that we "staged" was taken when my daughter was just three days old.  It was Easter Sunday.  We put her in a large Easter basket surrounded by Easter eggs and candy.  She looked so cute!  I titled the page "Look What the Easter Bunny Brought!"     
           -Faith Kilmer, TX

       We live in Puerto Rico and the fall season was upon us.  I was saddened to realize that my children would not enjoy a pumpkin patch this season.  So when our Navy base commissary received a large shipment of pumpkins, I dressed my two toddlers for the occasion and took pictures of them picking out their pumpkins in the 'pumpkin patch'. 
          -Kenya Smith

       I once planned a picnic in the park after church one Sunday just because I had seen a great layout for park pictures.  The whole family had a great day at the park playing and eating. I also now have one of the best layouts I have ever created with some very nice pictures with lots of color and fun memories. 
          -April Reynolds

       I recently staged a picture of my daughter climbing up the bottom two steps of a stairway (she is only 7 months) so that the caption will read:  "With imagination, anything is possible" or "If you can dream it, you can do it".  Her Grandfather taught her to climb a set of three steps, so I thought it would be cute to take a picture that shows the steps in front of her. 
          -Roxanne Kuerschner

       I had seen a cute apple quilt pattern - and I thought it would make a cute layout, with pictures of my two boys.  I dressed them in red, and gave them each an apple, and prepared to take a couple pictures.  My little 7-month old baby looked at his for a moment, then leaned over and licked the apple.  It was so cute.  Even though the original idea had been staged, can you ever really "stage" anything with children?? They always do the unexpected.  My 4 year old took a bit out of his apple, and then offered his to the baby.  Again the baby looked at it, and licked it - one of his first tastes other than milk and cereal, and he really seemed to like it.  I ended up using the rest of that roll.  The kids were so cute.  Incidentally, as I tried to sit down to make the apple quilt layout, it hasn't come together.  I may just bag that idea and create a completely different layout than what I originally planned and staged the photos for.  
          -Jennifer Blackham, Utah

I am in the process of staging a Halloween layout and it started with the costume for my 8-month old daughter.  While shopping for costumes, we came across this beautiful ladybug costume.  I had to get it because I had the best stickers and layout idea using Anne Geddes stuff.  So, hopefully I’ll get some great pictures come next weekend to do justice to my ideas!
          -Sonja

I just had to have a layout with wonderful fall colored leaves featured in photos and using leaf punchies. We had no leaves in our yard, so I dressed my 13 month old grandson in a cute red jacket and matching pants, perused the neighborhood and found just the tree and pile of leaves across the street from our house. With my youngest daughter's assistance the baby was plopped among the leaves (the neighbors were out) while I snapped off photos as quickly as I could...poor baby didn't know what we were doing and eventually cried. The photo show his anxious
little face but I love the layout!!
           -Deborah in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

I had pictures of my son and my cousins daughter when they were about 18  months old kissing.  I staged my daughter and my sisters children kissing for a "Kissing Cousins" page.
         -Debbie Bertram

I got a great idea for a bowling layout, but we'd never gone so I took my step kids and nieces and nephews bowling just so I could get the pics and do the page*Ü*
         -Christy Hofherr

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