The More Things Change...

I've been working hard on John's first year album...trying to get "caught up" before he's so old I don't remember the stories that went with the photos. I decided I was going to make collage pages to act as separators throughout the book, so am really catching up on those, since its just a matter of opening a template, popping in a few photos from any given month, adding a few papers and maybe an embellishment or two and it's done.  But in between those pages, I stopped to work on a page that *might* someday go in the album that I have been talking about making for a while.

Kit: Secret Crush by Sweet Digi Scraps
Fonts: Pea C-squared and American Typewriter

Working on this layout made me realize how few recent pictures I have of Scott and me.  I think this one is three or four years old! I had to do a little work on the older photo, as the original is very dark, but I like the effect I got when I turned it sepia.  I really liked this kit too -- the pink, green, and black was fun to mix together, and I can see using this with some pictures of Maggie too!

New computer, new layouts. That's the way that works.

The computer came in last weekend in just enough time to download Photoshop before heading to a friend's house for a day of scrapbooking. I love, love, love it, and am wondering why I haven't switched to a Mac long ago.  I still lament the loss of my layouts that weren't printed and some photos, but I'm handling it pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Back to the scrapping -- Running herd on the baby curtailed the quantity of layouts that *might* have been produced, but I still got one and a half pages finished, both inspired by the same lyrics.  Since I have two kiddos, I couldn't make an inspirational page for one and not the other. :)

Rise Up Singing
Kit: JayBird Street by Dream Big Designs
Journaling reads: My sunshine, I can’t believe you are growing up so fast. In just three short days you will start third grade. You are reaching an age where my ideas and opinions are no longer the most important in your life. That realization fills me with both awe and fear. Awe because you are becoming an independent girl with her own path in front of her. Fear because I have stood in your shoes, and know the challenges that you may face as you walk your path. I can only encourage you, offer you my experiences, and hope and pray that your path may offer you good friendships, great learning, and a positive sense of self. Sometimes I wonder if I have given you the tools you need to grow into a happy, healthy teenager, but that it something I can not know until we reach the end of your teenage years. For there is no manual that explains how to raise a girl. No manual offering rules and guidelines for carrying the strong bond between a daughter and her mother from the early years of childhood into the turbulent teenage years. I know that you will wake up one day and feel the sunshine on your face. You will become a strong, beautiful young woman. Until that day, I am content to keep you as my little girl. My sweet sunshine.  (That's for you, Mom) :)

Rise Up Singing 2
Kit: First Dip of Summer by Samceline
Sorry, Johnny...I didn't journal on yours. :)

This week I've been playing with my supplies from GottaPixel designers in preparation for my guest month as a Creative Sweetie for Sweet Digi Scraps, in addition to participating in their regular Friday night speed scrap.  It's a great SS because the element of speed is only in your head. The chat goes so fast, I don't know of anyone who actually scraps DURING the chat.  Most wait til the chat is over, or even the next morning, though the second doesn't ever work very well for me.

Mom & Me
Photos from Maggie's first day of school
Kit: Spoonful of Sugar by Litabells Designs

Princess
Kit: Pass the Peas by Sweet Digi Scraps

I just noticed as I was posting these images up, that I only journaled on one out of the four...guess that means I'll be journaling on most of my layouts this week.  I already have the journaling written for one, just haven't been able to figure out how to build the layout around the text.

So more to come this week as the first week of September begins.  New designers to work with at MLAS, and my guest month at SDS...can't wait!!!

Itching to Scrap and Template Albums

I think this is the longest I have gone without creating anything new in a very long time.  Not having a computer that functions at 100% is something I don't hope to do very often.  I even bring my laptop on vacations with me because I can't stand to not have access.  I'm turning to my journal in the meantime, so hopefully I'll have a good stash of ideas and material when I am up and running again (which will hopefully be sometime tomorrow). 

In my hiatus, I am mulling over projects that have been started an not completed, started and lost in the crash, or not started at all.  I have two albums that are acting like elephants in the room, and I have been avoiding them at all costs.  First is John's 1st Year album. Although he is not finished with his first year, I wanted to stay close to current.  I'm almost afraid to look at which layouts are safely on my EHD and which are potentially lost.  So I'm also thinking I am starting from scratch.  Ugh!

The second elephant project is the album about Scott and I that I started traditionally and got about 6 pages in before I was overwhelmed by the scope of the project.  Part of my problem with this one is I keep changing my mind about how I want it to flow.

To solve both problems with one stone, I am thinking of picking up a template pack and working from that.  At least that way I am not reinventing the wheel for each page.  I'm thinking of this one from Biograffiti at oScraps.com:

I also like this one from ScrapElf at mylifeandscrap.com:

There is a third I liked, but it was bookmarked on the dead computer, and I don't remember which site it was from.  Yet another pitfall found from losing a computer!

I like the journaling space in both, the clean lines and ability to have some photo heavy pages in the Biograffiti pack, and the helpful element placement suggestions in the ScrapElf set.  Maybe I'll have to use both, I just don't know.  I've never completed a whole album from templates, so that makes me a little nervous too.  Maybe I'll wait until after September, when my second attempt at Me: The Abridged Version is over. This time I am determined to FINISH the album, which should be easier since this time I am more digi savvy and can reuse some of the posts I created for the last version, which was never finished. 

Anyone have any thoughts on albums created with templates?  I'd love the hear about other's experiences or see examples! 

My First Challenge at MLAS

I am hosting my first challenge at My Life and Scrap during the last half of August.  I had an ad almost finished before my computer crashed, but didn't finish it first, so I don't have an image to post for now.  Hopefully at the end of this week, I'll be able to whip another one up.  It's a Mystery Lift Challenge -- a cross between a scraplift and a speed scrap.  Full instructions can be found here.  I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Good News, Bad News, Good News

Good News: 
I can knock yet another item off my goals for 2010, or 2009, or whenever I first started setting goals related to scrapbooking.  I received notice about a week ago that one of my layouts had been selected to be included in the Log Your Memory 2010 Yearbook.  This book will contain a layout for each day of 2010, and will be published in January of 2011.  If that wasn't excitement enough, there is a chance it could lead to the layout being featured for the month of July.  Voting for the featured layout continues until the 20th here.

Bad News: 
My computer crashed this weekend.  As I was working, it got continually slower, so I finally decided to restart.  It shut down fine, but on the restart I was greeted with a beautiful blue screen...of death.  Well, maybe not entirely "of death" but I haven't been able to find a solution to the problem, after hours of searching on Microsoft's "Solutions" forums. 

Good News:
Because I have already had to reinstall Windows once (and this would make twice) since the beginning of summer, we decided it was time for me to upgrade.  So I am now a Mac.  Well, I will be a Mac as soon as it arrives.  Hoping to get shipping confirmation tomorrow, and by the end of the week I will be up and running again.  In the mean time, I am going crazy with nothing to scrap! 

*HUGE* Sale!

There's a huge sale going on at GP this weekend, in celebration of the start of school! (I still have to wait until the 25th for school to ACTUALLY start, but a girl can dream.)

Included are so many great kits, including Thrify, the kit I blogged about yesterday! You just have to go check it out! :) 

A page for my mom and a new kit!

I created this layout for my mom.  I love this photo of her, but can't remember where we found it. There is a note on the back that just says, "Debbie at Mom & Dad's 25th." My favorite part of this is that when she saw the photo she knew exactly whose house she was in, and could describe other parts of the house as well.  This photo was taken less than two months after she herself had been married, and is one of the very few photos of her before children that I have in my possession.   When I saw the new kit from Sweet Digi Scraps, my first thought was of this photo. The kit has a great vintage feel with some of my favorite colors included.

Thrifty is new today!

If you buy both the kit and the alpha together, there is a *FREE* gift!  Here's a preview of the gift with purchase:

 

Happy Weekend Shopping!

More from my August MLAS designers

I have two more layouts from my August MLAS designers: Samceline and Dream Big Designs.

Sleep My Little Baby uses "Good Night" by Samceline. Font is Pea Catherine Anne.

My Guitar Hero uses "Defiant" by Dream Big Designs. Title fonts are Satisfaction and Downcome. Journaling font is Pea Catherine Anne

I absolutely love "Good Night" for sleeping pictures of Johnny!  I also used it on another layout last week, Crabbing, but it looks like a completely different kit with the different elements.  I love kits like that. It makes them so much more versatile, especially having a boy and a girl, it is nice to be able to use the same kits with both kids.  Another kit that would work equally well for a boy or girl is "Defiant".  I had already made a page about Maggie's Christmas obsession with Guitar Hero, but at the time I didn't have elements as perfect for the layout as this kit is, so I just HAD to redo it. :) 

Lots of news coming out this weekend at GottaPixel...I already have posts lined up for tomorrow and Saturday, so come back to see what's going on!  (Just in case you didn't know...I will be a guest CT member for Sweet Digi Scraps at GP in September. Even though I'm unofficial until September, there is so much going on that they let all the guests play with tomorrow's new release.  I am so excited about it!  But more on that tomorrow!) 

Where's the Story: My Manifesto (sort of)

Yesterday I said I had one more layout to share.  I felt like this layout was too important to lump in with all the others I had created over the course of the week.  Not because of who is in the photos, or which designers I used, but because of the purpose for sharing the layout.  The purpose for even creating the thing (a purpose that goes deeper than "because I was at a speed scrap"). 

Where's the Story? using "Watch Me Shine" by Litabells Designs:

I've noticed over the last few months that the number of layouts I've created with only photos, or very little journaling has increased, while the numbers of layouts that tell a story have decreased.  Friday night, while searching for photos to use in a speed scrap, I decided it was time to tackle a subject I'd been mulling around for a while. So rather than choosing three photos, as the instructions stated, I chose three layouts.  Two very recent ones (that I love) and one older one (that I also love). The difference in the older vs. newer is that the newer only contained photos and word art.  And maybe a date/location tag.  But no meaningful story. No why these photos are important. No method to my madness.  So with this layout, I vowed to tell the story more often. Beginning with this layout, I will tell the story more often. Because that is why I scrap.

How quickly I fall behind...

It doesn't take long and I am behind in posting.  In the week since I posted last, I have 8 new layouts to share.  That's a layout a day.  Wow...that number actually got me thinking last night and the layout I created last night really expresses my thoughts about that number and the layouts I've been creating lately.  I'm going to save that one for its own post in a day or so.  For now, here are seven layouts from the past week.  5 are from My Life & Scrap, and 2 are from Gotta Pixel.

The first two layouts are both with designs by jusme digital, who was one of my July designers at MLAS.
Animal Adventurer with "Funky Girl" by jusme digital

Best Friends with "What the Scrap August 1-15 mini" by jusme digital

The other three MLAS layouts use kits from my August designers, Samceline and Dream Big Designs.
Meeting Grandpa Mike with "JayBird Street" by Dream Big Designs

Moments in the Grass, also with JayBird Street

Crabbing for the first time with Good Night by Samceline

The two using GP products were both for challenges at their site.
Caught (My Little Bookworm) using "Page Turner" by Captivated Visions. Template by Captivated Visions.

Hello using "All Star" by Litabells Designs. Template by Litabells Designs.

I'll be back later this weekend with my final layout from last week.  It's a doozy, so it needs it own post!

My husband

(All papers and elements: Funky Fresh by Z Pink Boudoir; Fonts: Cry Kitty and Century)

I got some really good pictures of my husband while we were on vacation in July, which led to these two layouts. The layout above is fun because it shows how some things never change. In the 13 or so years I have known Scott and his sister, they have always teased each other good naturedly (and sometimes not so good naturedly). But as they've matured, that part of their sibling relationship hasn't changed.  When I suggested I take a picture of them while they were sharing the couch, both readily agreed, and sometime between the first and second frame, the bunny ears appeared. 

The layout below is one that caused a furrowed brow on the part of Scott.  I didn't complain though, I wasn't trying to take a picture.  The journaling reads, "It’s not often that you will smile in a photo for me. Usually you plaster a scowl on your face as soon as I turn the camera on. But here, in your dad’s house, you gave me a smile long enough to snap one picture, followed by scowls in the next four. However, I’ve known you long enough to watch for trouble..." It fit with the title I had in my head, to match the emerald green color (which is part of the monthly color challenge HERE), but it's also very true. 

(All papers and elements: Adequately Emerald by jusme digital; Fonts: Papyrus and Century)

Also, did you notice the new blog background and header?  They are part of a freebie template pack by Samceline.  The background came as it, and the header is just my own text with one of the free clusters on it.  I thought it was so cute that after I had tested it for Kirsten to make sure it fit properly, I decided to leave it up.  Thanks for the freebie, Kirsten!