back in the saddle

So after the company (in the scrapbooking industry) I worked for closed up shop, I stopped scrapbooking for awhile. I was also busy with my new baby girl. And then I started digital scrapbooking in February. Which you know if you’ve been reading my blog. Well, last week I submitted some of my digital pages to Scrapbook Trends and I just got an email that they want one of my pages for the digital section of their November issue! It’s one of my Jaimee pages that has now been replaced here on my blog with the “Out for Pub” sign. *grin*

Go me!

and now for some non-Jaimee pages

Things I did to celebrate my 40th birthday in January:

celebrating my newphew’s 16th b-day (which also happens to be on St. Patty’s Day):

my sister with her kids and my kids (and my other sister’s dog!) when we were having a family get-together at our mom’s:

a two-pager about a family vacation in 2007:

I really do have other children

Maybe it’s because this is my first time being a scrapbooker while having a baby. Maybe it’s because babies (and by “babies”, I mean my baby) are so darned cute. But apparently, I’m only scrapbooking Jaimee lately. I only just noticed it. I’m going on a girly scrapbooking trip in a week and a half to lovely Lake Tahoe (yay, can’t wait!) and I’ll make a concerted effort to scrap Drew & Holly and other stuff too. But in the meantime, here are my latest pages:

um, it’s official

I’m a digital scrapbooker.

Part of me is looking at the part of me that just said that and is going “What?!” What can I say? I totally love it. Love that I can just sit down and start. No gathering up the supplies (or having to clean up the mess from last time first). Love that things are soooooooooooooo easy to change. And all things are changeable! Love that I don’t have to plan ahead with printing out the photos in the sizes/colors/etc that I want. Love how quickly I can finish a page. Love the techy-geeky part of it. Love doing a photo book instead of an album. Love, love, love.

And today I got some super fun news. I won the latest Simply Inspired contest over at Designer Digitals! Two very cool things about this. One, it’s my favorite digital page I’ve created so far. I have no shame in saying I love this page. And two, I won a $10 GC for Designer Digitals as a prize! Great timing as we are painfully broke right now, lol. Here’s the page I won with:

In other news, not so great this time, well… I scrapped it, so I’ll just post the page for ya:

Pray for me.

edging ever so close to the dark side

In the scrapping world, digital scrapping is known as “the dark side” of scrapbooking. And when I say I’m edging ever so close to it, I mean that I’m facing being hopelessly and completely engulfed in it never to turn back to paper.

*gasp*

Never thought I’d see the day. I’ve seen friends go there. And stay there. And have had them tell me if I ever started I wouldn’t turn back either. And I always scoffed at them. That would never happen to me. And yet here I am a month after my first digital scrapbook page and I fear my digi friends were right. What am I going to do with this enormous stash of paper scrapping goodies I’ve been collecting for the last 8 years?! Will I ever finish the unfinished paper projects I’ve started?

I’ll tell you this. In about two weeks time I digi scrapped the highlights of 2008 (yes, the whole year) and made a Shutterfly book:

(click the book image to see the whole thing) and got it back and I’m pretty sure I’m hooked. I have never been able to paper scrap that fast. It’s been so rewarding and I love the idea of the photo books instead of the traditional (huge & heavy!) photo albums.

As I write this… well… I really can’t believe I’m writing this! Maybe it’s just the excitement of a “new love” and maybe I’ll regain my desire to paper scrap. But for the moment, it’s gone, baby gone.

Here are the pages I’ve created since the 2008 Year in Review book. Click on them to see the larger view.

a page about me & Ron celebrating our anniversary:

I love how I can blend the photo of the restaurant into the background of the page with digi scrapping.

.
Here’s another one of me Ron when we were at the beach a couple years ago. More blendy goodness:

Kinda dreamy, huh?

.
Now here’s one that doesn’t utilize the blending, but I finished this page eons faster than if I’d tried to do this with paper. And there’s stitching on it! I don’t own a sewing maching and was never able to stitch on my paper pages. Not that I’d be able to anyway since I can’t sew my way out of a paper bag… but I digress…

That was in ‘07 before Jaimee was a glimmer in our eye.

.
And here’s one with my sweet Jaimee love!

Finished in lightning-speed time.

.
So I have TONS to learn still, I know. But I’m completely and utterly loving it.