Eight Crazy Nights

Every year we celebrate Hanukkah.  We light candles for eight nights, give presents on most nights, eat fried foods on a few nights, and celebrate one night with each side of the family. Although it is a fun holiday, it is not a holiday with deep religious significance and it does not require us to spend hours in the synagogue. During the eight days of Hanukkah, we go to work and school and do homework and laundry and proceed through our regular lives.  Every year we take few photos and I create scrapbook pages which look basically like this:

Recently I decided that Hanukkah is a fun holiday and the scrapbook page should reflect this. It is also a repetitive holiday as we basically do the same thing for eight nights.  As a result, I have decided to take a more fun and repetitive approach to scrapping this holiday.  One approach that I enjoy is putting eight photos - one for each night - all on a single layout. This can be done in a grid, a row, or across a two-page spread.

On this layout, I focused on the lights. Each night I took a different picture of the candles. I varied the angle, the zoom and whether the room lights were on or off.  I used some old Hanukkah paper that I had in my stash and modernized it with some trendy elements: twine, banners, and big brads. If you count across the layout, you can see that I actually used one photo from each night by the increasing number of candles.

I took the same approach on this layout, but I cheated. I used nine photos, and several are from the same night. However, since some photos don't have candles in them, no one will ever know. 

One year I was having trouble with my camera during Hanukkah. The sensor was broken and the lighting came out wrong in the photos. After a few nights, I realized and switched to an older camera. Luckily this happened during Hanukkah, the only holiday when we get multiple chances to take almost the same photos.  I decided to go completely crazy with my scrapbook page that year. I used the craziest papers in my stash, added eight photos, and journaled about the camera problems.

Of course, there are plenty of crazy aspects about Hanukkah. How about the spelling? Do you spell it Hanukkah, Hannukah, Chanuka, Chanukah, or perhaps Hanukah? I think there is a fun layout possibility in the spelling options.

For traditional-looking Hanukkah layouts, there are always a few Hanukkah-themed products available. You might also want to consider Israel- or Bar/Bat Mitzvah-themed products.  Of course, traditional colors and Hanukkah-themed papers are not required. Winter-themed products or bright colors make great Hanukkah layouts too.

Whether you observe Hanukkah in your family or have the opportunity to celebrate with friends or community, I hope I have given you some fun ideas to scrap these eight crazy nights. Please check out my Scrapjazz gallery for product details on the layouts shown here.