Scrapbooking Made Simple

Hi Everyone, We're back! And we had a great time! I took my computer away with me and each night uploaded the photos from that day and dropped them into these premade pages I did before we left. I've sent them off for printing and when I get them back I'll be using my binding machine to create an album of our trip. On day 1 we left our house and headed up to the coast (about an hour and a half trip). We stopped at the Big Pineapple for the kids to have a look and would of stayed there for lunch but the prices were rather LARGE! ($8.90 for a sundae?). So we left there and headed off to the nut factory where the kids got to watch the chocolate coating process. We then had lunch. DH and I enjoyed a lovely macadamia flavoured coffee. Then we checked into our hotel and bought our groceries for the week. (this was alot easier than normal as the supermarket was across the road). Our resort was right on the water. And I mean right ON the water. In fact you could probably go fishin...

On Day 2 of our holiday we went to Sunshine Castle. This was great fun for the kids. There was a treasure hunt and when they solved all the clues they got a treat. We had lunch here as climbing all the way from the dungeon to the top tower used up all our energy so we needed replensishing. After lunch we went shopping along hastings street and then had ice-cream. We then came back to the aprtment for some swimming but I didn't do a layout of this as I'd already done two swimming pages.

These are the pages from day four of our holiday. We had a lovely day. We went for a walk around the area our hotel was. Walking along Cotton Tree foreshore we found a lovely park for the kids to play at and then we wandered along the beach and found some great finds (which DS will take to school for show and tell on his return).

Here are some more pages I did with a free digit kit from Shabby Princess ( www.shabbyprincess.com ). These photos are of my son's 6th Birthday which was held at a park and the highlight of the event was riding Pop's Steam Train. I now do my scrapbooking in three categories. There's the digi scrap of individual photos for creative sake when I don't have time to get out all my supplies. Then the traditional scrapbooking I do which allows me to use all of my creativity and then I do some dig scrap pages of the highlights of the year so I can print these as a little book of their own. I printed one of these books and gave it to the kids grandfather for Christmas so he had an album of the kids entire year of growth and adventure. These birthday photo layouts are going into the digi album. They're quick and easy to do and allow me to fit alot of photos in as I can easily resize and crop the photos. Well I'd better go hang my washing out as we've finally got a ...

Here's another layout I just finished. This one is done using Rhonaa Farrer Designs from the 2 Peas Range. I love this photo. It's just my DD riding around our carport on her bicycle but her smile and the way the painted concrete has mottled into such a nice background. The gorgeous dress was purchased as her Summer/Christmas Party Dress and got ALOT of use over Christmas. It was one of those dresses that as soon as I saw it I knew she'd LOVE! DD loves purple!!!! I've been very busy around the house at the moment as my DH has been helping me relocate some furniture around the house. We've moved the computer desk into my daughter's room. To make this happen we had to re-organise the furniture in my daughters room and so we took the opportunity to do a little redecorating. We put up some temporary wallpaper so now her room looks like a princess's palace from a disney cartoon. Of course all of this effort is really for my benefit as I never got a little girl...

I love this photo! This was taken by our new adopted grandfather. I have done a layout of this photo using paper scrapbooking techniques. Here I couldn't resist using the photo again when I saw this perfect page kit from 2 Peas. Sometimes it is a good idea to use colours in your photo to create your background. And sometimes you'r better off not using those colours as your photo fades into the background and doesn't pop off the page. Here I used the same colours and I think I get away with it. ...lol I'm so tired I can't really think very well tonight. I had to get my kids out of bed 2 hours before their usual wake up time this morning so I could drive my dad to the hospital where he went for a bi-pass operation. He's doing better than us I think. We're all tired and cranky and he's already giving the nurses a hard time. Anyway what this means for you is that I may be a little busy going to visit him etc to do any posts for a day or two. I will check my...

I love the photos of DS and DH. What a great shot of "ol blue eyes" (DS). I've used a very monochramatic colour scheme here with another free kit. Even though there is alot of blue in the photos along with green and pink I think the photo's "pop" off the page the most on this background. That's probably one of the best things about digital scrapping. When you do a layout it's really easy to try different backgrounds etc without wasting supplies. I tried two different layouts before choosing this one and didn't waste any paper, glue or embellishments changing my mind.

I love this layout..... Not for the papers and embellishments and general layout but for the memory it keeps. My cousin David and his wife are very important in my children's lives and my DS started the tradition of calling Uncle David..... Aunty David... I thinks it's so cute (David not so much! lol) and will be sad when they've outgrown this phase. but this page will always be here to remind them. It also records how differently DS and DD are which is showcased by their different attitudes to swinging. DS doesn't want to be pushed at all. Whereas DD can't go high enough!

Here's another digital layout done with a free kit from 2 Peas. This whole page was done for me by the designer I just added my photos and the "Cherich all your Happy Moments" rub on. This page took 2 minutes to complete! How cool is that!

This layout is another digi scrap layout that now has me searching for a paper scrapping product! I love the Rhonna Farrer journal stamp on this layout. Which I now HAVE to HAVE! So although I'm doing lots of digiscrap at the moment (cause it's quicker and I can do it anywhere I can take my laptop e.g the park, swimming lessons, etc) I'm still a paper scrapper at heart!

I recently digitally scrapped this layout with photo's from my wedding. My mother gave me away at my wedding and she told her friends it was one of the proudest days' of her life! So this page was done to commemorate that. Sometimes I think you need to keep it simple! There are lots of beautiful mother daughter poems available out there but I think "A mother daughter moment" says it all. I'm in the process of paper scrapping my wedding photos. The only problem I find is I keep wanting to go back and redo pages as my skill level increases. So pages I did a year ago no longer please me and I want to redo them very badly. At least with these digi pages that will be really easy to achieve.

Well if you're travelling on this digiscrap journey with me you'll be as excited as I was to find this site: http://www.scrapwow.com/ . I was really impressed with the size of the free kit. It has lots of useful papers and embellishments. So on Friday Night I did some scrapbooking at my girlfirend's house. It was GREAT! I got lots done. My favourite is this one. (The title is: Other things may CHANGE us but we start and end with FAMILY.) The only problem I have now is that at my heart I'm a "hands on" scrapper so when I used this background paper I fell in love with it and now want a piece of it for real! I have gone back to using the Scrapbook Max program as I felt it allowed me alot more creative freedom with my backgrounds. But don't take my word on that, try them both for yourself and see what you think.