Digi Scrapper

The story behind the page:

I just want to clarify, for those few people who do wander across this blog, I have 3 sons and no daughters. However, I seem to find my muse for speed scraps when I look at the pictures I happen to have of friends' kids. I've scrapped close to 30 pages now and of those, I'd say only a third (maybe) are of my own kids.

This page was done specifically for last night's speed scrap in the SBB chatroom. Our inspiration was to pick at least 3 colors from one of three color schemes. They were all nice, but I decided I wanted to do something bright. These colors would have gone great with some nice tropical/beachy pictures, but unfortunately, the pictures I do have of us at the beach are all taken on cloudy, icky days.

So I decided to use the pictures that Alex took the other day while her sisters, Brittany and Chloe weren't sharing the MP3 player. Surprisingly, most of the pictures turned out really well. She took photos of random things, but she managed to line up those shots exceedingly well for a 3 year old.

Today during karate class, I had the chance to talk to Chloe and the two youngest of her sisters. There are 5 kids in the family altogether. I'm not 100% sure on the names, but I believe I also met Brittany, 6 and Alex, 3.

At any rate, I see them all the time since the school is basically just one big room with the main section marked off by a half wall and a smaller part by the door reserved for seating any observers who happen to be there. However, usually I'm forced to sit out in the car because I can't keep Dare and Trev from trying to rush onto the mat. Today I had the chance to just sit and talk to a couple of the other moms. They all seem to already know each other. Most likely from other homeschooling events, but it's possible they all attend the same church or live near each other.

One of the moms I was talking to was "lucky" enough to have all three girls trying to bounce on her lap at once. Since I have a 2 and 4 year old myself, it was easy for me to come up with the idea to let them listen to my MP3 player. The real challenge came from trying to find songs that I thought would be appropriate listening for them. I've learned that you never assume that what's ok for your kids is ok for anybody else's. Finally, we settled on Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson, which they reckonized from the Princess Diaries soundtrack. Much to my surprise and delight, Chloe started warbling along with the song. It was the both the funniest and cutest thing I've seen in ages.

Since only two girls could share the earphones at once, I let the other sister use my camera to take some pictures. One of the resulting photos was the one I used in my layout. The others were all very interesting in composition and subject. I expect to use most of them in one form or another soon. The best ones she took of her mom and sisters I plan to print off and give to them on Monday. The really are too good to waste.

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?