Scrapbooking Made Simple

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!

This is a layout I recently finished of my daughter. I took this photo and turned it into a pastel drawing then added the poem then placed that into this layout. I love that crotchet pieces are becoming popular in layouts at the moment. My mum had a bag of little crotchet centres and border strips which I have inherited so I'm looking for special projects to ad these too. If you're not much of a crotcheter' like me I'd suggest finding a nice nana who loves making doilies and raiding her stash!

I received this message in an email earlier today: Wait... it gets better! As a way of saying thank you for attending our first Scrap-A-Faire, we have provided FREE PASSES for TWO of your friends. So I was thinking about it and wondering who to share my two free passes with? Now I know there are alot of you who drop by and read my posts. And for that I'm grateful. So grateful in fact I'm going to give away my two free passes to two of my readers. All you have to do is send me an email at: cheapscrapbookingideas@yahoo.com . To make it fair I've decided you have to tell me what topic you'd like me to cover in a future blog or video. I thought about making it first two to reply but figured that wouldn't be fair due to the time zone differences. So I'm looking for ideas of what you'd like to hear me talk about. My favourite two entries will receive my extra passes. The judges' decision is final. No money to change hands etc etc etc. It's just a fun way...

This layout was finished recently to showcase the day we spent in the last school holidays at the art gallery. It was a great day for the kids. They had an area set aside for the kids to do an artwork which they then put into an envelope and climbed a pillow mountain to post. All these were then sent to another museum somewhere else in the world. The kids also got an envelope from kids in Japan with their drawings in them. They loved this whole experience. Best thing was it was a totally FREE entertainment!

Ta...da! Here is my Darling Son's first digiscrap layout of himself riding the train. This was a great day which he enjoyed immensely. This was his first outing with his new adopted nana and pop. Pop owns this train so Jordie was in heaven! Then he got onto my laptop and created this digiscrap layout of his day. After trialing several different programs I bought the Scrapbook Max program and can highly recommend it. It's so easy to use even a five year old can do it! lol I didn't want a program I was going to have to learn alot about before I could start creating layouts I'd be happy with and the scrapbook max program has certainly fitted that bill! I also didn't want to spend a fortune and again the scrapbook max program fit the bill. But do check it out for yourself to see if it's right for you. In fact click on the link on my site and try the free version before you make any decisions. Let me know what you think.

As you all know I'm a big fan of buying paper in bulk. I'm also a big fan of buying with a friend. On the weekend my DH, DD, DS and I went to visit DH's brother, his wife and their two DS's. My brother-in-law had just come back from a business trip to the states. (They've all just moved back here after several years living in the states.) Anyway while he was over there my sister-in-law sent him shopping for paper at costco. What a good hubbie! I must say I'm really jealous of the bulk paper packs available to americal scrappers. All the papers were gorgeous. I've purchased a sheet of every type at $0.30c a sheet off my sister-in-law. Not bad! (The photos above are just a selection of my favourites. I actually bought 35 sheets) lol! I can't wait to get in and start using them. It's the sort of paper that just begs for some tearing! Even though I haven't found any packs of the same quality and such unusual effects here there are still some great b...

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.

As you all know I love FREE supplies . And the world is full of them if you're on the lookout. My sister-in-law has caught the Miser bug (see the 12 cent layout) and has some great ideas. She recently moved back to Australia from America with my husband's brother and their two boys. And because she knows how much I love free supplies she saved some of her packingaging off a recent delivery. She gave me some lovely corrugated cardboard and some packing ribbon in the same colour as my son's school uniform. I can't wait to try out the cardboard. I'm going to dry brush it with paint and then tear the edges.... I just need to decide on a project for it. So I think it's a great idea to involve your friends and family in this search for free supplies. If people know for instance that you'd love to have the back's off their old notebooks (a great source of free chipboard), then before you know it you'll have more chipboard than you can possibly use in a life...

I love the BEACH! It's finally warming up enough to go to the beach. As we're only two blocks from the beach I take the kids there alot! But if we're going swimming I go to the man made lagoon as I don't have to worry about sea lice or jellyfish with the kids. The thing I like most about the weather warming us is the photo opportunities it presents. This layout was done with the photos of our last day at the beach (Autumn 2007) and now I can't wait for the Spring 2007 shots so I can experiment with this kit some more. This is a digikit so for once I don't need the shells. One of the things I love to do is walk up and down the beach with the kids finding little shells and pieces of coloured glass and I take a little bag and fill it with sand to take home. All of these items make perfect embellishments for my pages and best of all they're FREE! I think the beach is one of the best sources of free supplies. I have even found nylon netting and fishing line and o...

I wish I had audio on my blog. That tittle is a direct result of the ABC Kids - Television the kids are watching at the moment. The theme song for Gordon the Garden Gnome was playing when I started typing and it seemed to fit my life at the moment.... busy, busy, busy, there's lots to do today, busy busy busy..... etc Today is a public holiday in Redcliffe for the Exhibition Show. Across Brisbane the public holiday is shared throughout the week so that every area gets a day off and can go to the Show on a different day. Thus ensuring lots of people going each day. Except for this year. They're talking about moving the Show next year as this year there have been record low attendances. Probably something to do with the deadly flu that has claimed its sixth child so far. Or perhaps the vomiting diahorrea that is going around at present.... along with several other flu viruses that although not deadly are pretty awful. I've been fighting all these bugs off all winter. It'...

This is my latest layout. The first photo is the best one to show you the colour. It's actually a double page spead in the same colours but the camera went a little odd.... Now a little odd is being nice it's actually stopped working! I'm having withdrawl symptoms all ready and it's only been two days. Intellectually I know I have a heap of back photo's to scrap but I'm still hyperventillating. I'm really amazed though.... they don't build things like they used to... it's only 11months old??? So if you'd all like to pray for the health of my camera I'd be really appreciative.... lol This layout was really fun to do. I covered the page in feather to mirror the furryness of her jacket and I went with purple because it's her favourite colour. I made the tag's out of vellum and used the cool embossing plate I got free with a magazine to emboss the words on it. It's not the cheapest layout I've done but definitely the most fun! ...

I found this great way to store ribbon scraps. This container is one that strawberries come packaged in (I left the label on to prove it). And when I was the aeration holes in the lid I thought they were perfect for threading bits of ribbon through. I use a donnut package for most of my ribbons but those are on ribbon spools. So the problem has been what to do with the little lenghts of ribbon and fibre. By placing them in this container I can easily see all the colours and patterns I have as the container is completely clear and by pushing the ends through the holes I can easily measure off how much I need to use for a project. And Best of all this nifty storage device was FREE! (Well I'm sure they factor the price into the sale price of my strawberries but you know what I mean. Another found supply with no capital outlay!)

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.

Well as you all know I prefer to get stuff for FREE whenever I can and during my research of digital scrapbooking programs I came across this fantastic resource at scrapbookflair. ( http://www.scrapbookflair.com/ ) The scrapbooking software is free and they provide you with free templates, free backgrounds and free embellishments. WOW! The above is a layout I produced in 3 minutes using a template provided with the scrapbookflair software. This was the very first layout I did using the software and I think it turned out pretty well. I was really impressed with how easy this was to use. I opened the program up and just followed the prompts. There was no searching, no need to use the help function. Though there is heaps of that available as they have a help button as well as tips that pop up and an online community. I've actually uploaded this page to that site to get votes....lol I'm off now to try making a page from scratch and we'll see how it goes. I also really like that...

Another thing I discovered today was the instant gratification you get when you shop online for DigiScrap products. It's fabulous... you purchase.. you download and you start using! Now all I need to do is find a cheap way to print my digi scrap pages.

These are a few of my layouts I've achieved this evening using the Scrapbook Max program. I think I've had a pretty good play with this program and have been really impressed with how easy it's been to use. I don't want to have to read a manual to master a program. I just want to be able to load it up and start going and I have to say that this program has been that simple. Of course if you want it you can access the help menu but it's not been necessary at all! I do realise that the 'quality' of my digi layouts isn't anything earth shattering and at this stage they're pretty basic but then my first traditional scrapbooking layouts were alot worse so I'm holding out hope that I'll improve. Step 1 though is to choose program to use. So now that I've explored the Scrapbook Max program I'm going to have a look around and see what else is out there. Naturally I don't want to spend much on a digi scrap program so I'm looking for ...