What's Black and White and Red All Over?

A newspaper! Get it? Bwaaahahaaa! Raise your hand if you remember that silly joke from way back when!

It came to mind because... yes indeed... it's time for a color challenge at Ella's Pink Scrapbook (aka The Pink Elephant)!

Actually it's sort of a non-color challenge... use a BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPH in your layout!

Lucky for me, I have TONS of beautiful black and white photos of my parents. I'm working on a scrapbook for my dad of all his old photos. That's been quite a project... a work in progress for more than a year... but I'm getting close. I'll be sure to share a few pages with you one of these days.

In the meantime, since the layout I did of my beautiful mother on May 12 was such a hit (thank you so much for your kind comments!), I decided to create another page taken of her while she lived in Panama (see the story in my Bathing Beauty post). I believe I mentioned that because she worked in a photo lab, she was the subject of many pictures. This is one of my very favorites. I can't tell for certain because it's black and white, but I imagine the sky was piercingly blue and her skirt was very colorful. My mother loved color... I get that from her. So I found some colorful Graphic 45 paper that's also vintage looking.

Right after I finish this post, I'm going on eBay to buy another lamp for photographing my pages. My cards look okay, but my pages pale in comparison to what they look like IRL. I also bought a book called Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for Dummies. I just have to find the time to launch into it.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking about replacing my Canon EOS Digital Rebel, and I'm sorely tempted to buy a Nikon (I admit to being swayed by Ashton Kutcher's commercials). If you have an opinion on which is better, I'd love to hear from you! The guy in the store told me primarily it's speed... that the Canon is better for action shots. I don't take many of those. Anyway, please chime in if you have any advice!

Back to my layout... it's loosely based on this sketch by Julie Bonner. Mainly, it's all about the Graphic 45 paper. It's a shame you can't tell from the picture how cool the rhinestone "ribbon" looks. I put little rhinestone flowers in the center of the paper flowers I made to play off the ribbon, and then more rhinestones around the journaling.

Here's another thing I'm realizing about scrapbooking... that I'm nearly always ill-prepared for journaling and titles. I think I need to start jotting things down as they come to me because I get a brain freeze when it comes time to make the page. I'll probably end up changing out the journaling on this one... or not. Who knows. So many pictures, so little time.

So why not get out your black & white pictures and make a page this week! You KNOW you want to! For more inspiration, please click on over to The Pink Elephant and take a look at what the rest of Ella's girls created!

Thanks for stopping by today, my friends! I hope you have a fabulous day!