Digi Scrapper

These are photos from my friend Alison's daughters' ballet recital. She used my camera to take a bunch of pictures, but for some reason they were all of Natalie. Which is fine, she's adorable and this was her first recital, but I'd have loved to have some pictures of Olivia to work with too.

I don't really like the way my page turned out. If you've never done a speed scrap, it works something like this: The host posts your inspiration layout and maybe sometimes a theme or colors or kit to use (this wasn't how it went last night, but from what I understand, it can happen). Then you have a set period of time to make a page using that layout. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it again.

However, after I was finished and started looking at other people's layouts, I realized that I was completely literal. I'm surprised I didn't actually measure the sketch and size everything to match. As I looked at everyone else's work, I saw so many variations that still were obviously inspired by Jodi's sketch. I think I need to just loosen up a little, but for some reason I seem to lack the imagination to deviate from a sketch at all. My only other option is to just play around with stuff until it looks ok to my eye.

I'm looking forward to becoming more involved in the digital scrapbooking community. And boy are they active, LOL. I haven't scrapped in years. Basically about the time I started having kids and really having a lot of stuff to work with, I couldn't do it anymore because they'd get into my supplies. Doing it all on the computer appeals to me. It's way cheaper for one thing. Let's say I buy a kit for $5-7. They usually come with a variety of background papers (probably about fifty cents to a dollar each for the real stuff) and a bunch of different elements (I'm not even going to try to guess at the cost of the physical counterparts, but I'd say "a lot"). And there's no limit to the number of times you can use it. In theory, you could buy one $5 kit and just use it over and over and over again.

Now that I sound so thrifty, I should probably mention that I exercise about as much restraint in spending for this new hobby as I have for any of the other ones, which is to say, none at all. I've been at this for less than two weeks and I've already bought 5 kits and an extra pack of papers. I think I'm also about to purchase a membership to SBB. I've run into so many links that aren't accessible to little ol' me. Oh, and how can I forget the 2 books on Photoshop I bought (that I *still* haven't read), the 2 about digital scrapbooking itself, and 2 or 3 magazines on the subject? And the new printer and photo papers. OMG, it's worse than I thought. God help me if Mikey ever does the math.

I'm still getting a feel for using Hello. If you haven't tried it, you really should. It's a way to show bigger image files without waiting on the other person to download them. I'm not sure who is hosting my photo. Picasa? I wonder how long this will last? Will I come back in a month or a year and find ugly red X's?