Hi. Karen here feeling a tad emotional this month!

My 25 year old son has found a new job and will be moving out at the end of October. The emotions I feel are varied: delighted for Matt and so excited at the adventure he has ahead of him, proud that he has finally got where he has worked so hard to be, sad and kind of empty inside when I think of not seeing him most days and anxious that he will find a good place to live and fit in with the new people he will meet.

Scrapbooking wise, I had a problem. I don’t have any photos of Matt delivering the news to us that he got the job and I really wanted to document it.

So in this first page I used a photo of Matt as a child. He is climbing a tree all by himself and was so proud to get to the top. This makes me think of the metaphorical climb he has had to get where he is today in life. So I used that photo to document our current day news.

I do this quite a lot in my scrapbooking. The bonus is that it gets some of my (seemingly infinite) amount of older photos scrapped. The kit I used for this is New Leaf from Renne. It’s a New Year kit, but works perfectly to document a new chapter in life.

The other thing I do a lot when missing a photo for an important event, is to use quotes. I love to use a quote instead of a photo and I have a Pinterest board full of them.

I wanted to gift this layout to my son as a leaving present. So I wanted it to be kind of encouraging and to remind him to stay positive and surround himself with stimulating people. This quote from Amy Poehler is perfect.

Next I had a browse through Forever Joy’s kits to find something uplifting. Could this kit be more made for what I had in mind?! Positive Vibes with it’s beautiful blues and greens worked so well.

Renne always seems to have a kit for whatever is in my head lol. I don’t know how she does it. Anyway, that is my happy news documented. There will, of course, be photos to scrap when he moves. But for now these layouts have helped capture my feelings ‘in this moment’.

So why not try using an old photo to document a present day event, or a quote to sum up those emotions. You don’t always need a photo to capture a precious moment.
Thank you so much for reading