Scrapbook

Do you scrapbook?  I used to.  I really enjoyed it, and probably spent waaay too much money on paper and eyelets and tools and such.  I did it less and less as I had kids that would get into stuff, and I had less time to devote to it.  If I couldn't do 5 minutes here, and 3 there, it just wasn't a hobby I could do.  And getting ALL the supplies out to pick the right paper/embellishments for a photo, well, you can imagine what happened with toddlers around...

Enter digital scrapbooking.

Oh my.

I tried it first last summer, and liked the results, if they were fairly novice.  I started doing a few more pages a couple weeks ago, trying some new techniques, and I love it.  The best part?  I don't have to take over a whole table for a week to do a handful of pages.  No tape or stickers or bits for Organique to strew, no cutting tools for cropping photos or paper, no expensive adhesives to replace (when your kid uses it on the floor), no mess at all.  I can open up a project and spend 10 minutes while I nurse Baby, then leave it to cook dinner without hassle.  After they're in their protective sleeve in an album, your 2-year-old can't reach in and tear off a photo or frame.

The downsides:  You do need a decent editing program (I use photoshop elements), and a 12x12 page is about $3 to have printed.  But I'd say it's worth it.

Here are a few of my digital pages...

Baby:

Organique:

Hubby (this was one of last summer's pages.  He's building the chicken plucker.):

Organique again:

I 'made' very little of the 'stuff.'  You can buy and download papers and elements, but there's a ton available for free (guess which I do).  You can alter it appropriately, or use as-is, put it together as you like, and ta-da!