INTRODUCTION
Many years ago I read a little article in Readers’ Digest about creating a positive outlook for yourself. The original suggestion was to keep a 5-year diary and each night write about one beautiful thing you saw that day. I actually did that for a while. I still notice small beautiful things, a deer-track in the snow that everyone else walks by, etc., but now I am more likely to use my camera to record small beautiful things. I love the idea of taking one photo of something beautiful each day, but until then, I am looking for ways to use those photos without people in layouts. The difficulty is in preserving the reason I shot them in the first place.

So I thought: what would I do with photos like that? Do you have 6 photos of a sunset? Do you have few shots of that beautiful white crane that was in a nearby pond one day? Do you ever take a photo of just the table or turkey at Thanksgiving time?

FLOWERS AND QUILT PAGES
My mother was a gardener, and I can’t bear to part with all those photos of flowers she was forever taking. Like my mother, I take photos of not only MY garden flowers, but also flowers I see on our summer and fall camping trips and our winter trip to Florida.

With all these floral photos, I often wonder what to do with them once they’re developed. I love quilt layouts so with some of the quilt piece scrapbook tools in my collection of templates, I made some quilt layouts using flower photos that meant a lot to me. If my family isn’t interested in the flowers, maybe they will enjoy the designs.



SCENIC PHOTOS and PANORAMAS
If you really love scenery, you might look at a camera that takes panoramic photos. As an alternative, you can use regular photos with photo editing software to create panoramic photos. A year ago a group of us in an email group conducted a Panorama Swap. There were about 20 scrappers who took part in the swap. I took one panorama photo and had 20 copies made. The hostess of the swap distributed the copies we all made so I had 20 different panorama photos returned. I used some of them in this layout. One was used for the letters and the leaves; another made the bottom border.

In the second layout without people, I used a scenic paper with two photos handled as if they were one. The mats set the photo apart from the strong background.

PURSUITS and POEMS
While on vacation my family all seem to have their own favorite photos they want to take: lighthouses, one-room schoolhouses, decaying barns, dead trees, and mine, birdhouses. My daughter and son-in-law have a whole album of their lighthouse visits in Michigan. Scrapping photo collections like this can be especially challenging. It can also be a chance to try something new; a tool, technique, or embellishment. To scrap this photo of a birdhouse, I used a poem I felt was appropriate and I grouped that with a fitting background paper. Finally, I added some stickers I had in my stash. This technique brings the photo into context and preserves the memory I wanted to capture.

EVERYDAY THINGS and FANTASY PHOTOS
While I was taking photos of something else one day, I looked up, and the perfect blue sky with perfect fluffy clouds caught my eye. I snapped away and was not disappointed with the photo (see sky photo below). It stayed on my computer for several weeks until I noticed how a photo of my granddaughter looked like she was flying; a well-dressed cherub.
The sky photo was far too blue for the background of my fantasy layout so I played with it in my photo manipulation software (MS Picture It!) and lightened it. Then I printed it on vellum and added the hand-cropped photo of my granddaughter to the background. I also added wings cut from vellum and decorated with gold.



In classes we have made fantasy photos using flowers and children with sticker wings, elfin-like cats sitting among oversized china, even doll-sized adults hiding in grass. All you need to start with is a photo of something common and a photo of a human that can be cut out, or silhouetted.

So, don’t be afraid to scrap those photos that have still life subjects. There’s so much you can do with them - just use some related products, your reason for taking the photo and some imagination. If you add your photo manipulation software you’re all set!