It’s 2am and I’m still awake writing this blog…

if I get it all down on paper the computer its no longer inside of me threatening the life it belongs to.

Ok wasn’t that corny?  (anna nalick wanna be haha!)

So, its 2:30am, I’m on my way to bed and I am just thinking… I’M SO FREAKING PROUD OF MYSELF.

Want to know why?

I SCRAPBOOKED TONIGHT!  And not just one page… I did SIX pages… two 2-page layouts of the 4th of July and two 1-page layouts of Easter and P’s first haircut.

I’m getting there… getting there slowly but surely.

I wasn’t going to post.  I came upstairs, went pee, washed my face and (oops… forgot to brush my teeth) and all the while I kept thinking how proud I was that I scrapped and how easy it was to get those 2-page layouts together.

I’ve come to realize that I can’t scrap the same way I used to.  I can’t dedicate a whole page to each picture that I take.  I just don’t have the time. 4th of July at the camper… I would love do do a whole page on how cute Shae was in her life jacket and sunglasses, and how sassy Lia looked with her new walkman, and how cute Brenna was trying to put on her shoes, and a whole page about the bland yummy margarita’s that Ryan made for us.  But I can’t.  And, what’s better… I don’t need to!  It’s ok to cram them all on a page in a collage.  Keep it simple, make it a memory not a chore. 

So, I hope this is a start to a new outlook on scrapbooking. I’ve felt so bogged down by my millions of pictures that I’ve really gone into a funk.  I feel like I have so many events, things, to scrapbook about but not enough time to document the whole thing.  Because I kept trying to use my old scrapbooking style of one-picture-per-page-please. 

Here are some of my "new" outlines….. just some thoughts in my head, don’t mind me.

• Events, get togethers, vacations, gatherings, holidays… they can be condensed! 
• Lay out a general sketch for however many photos to fit on a page.  Figure out the sizes of each photo, go to Photoshop and crop the images to that size and layout the photo sketch on an 8×10 canvas.  Print the 8×10 out on plain paper (for the time being) and use that for your layout until the real prints come from the lab.  I think thats one of the reasons I always avoided making littler collages/using smaller photos/multiple photos per page… I have to wait for photos from the lab and when I have an idea I want to scrap, I want to scrap it now!  So, by printing off a "draft" photo I can get the layout done, and when the real photos come from the lab I just swap them out!
• Basic idea of scrapbook:  a highlight of my life, the story of us, I want to look back, read about things Porter does, says, his personality, funny things, funny stories, things we’ve done, places we’ve gone. 
• Leave those one-photo-per-page pages for the "big stuff"…. Porters funny habits, his new milestones etc. etc. 

Ok, so thats it for now.  I need to go to bed. I’m on P-man duty in the morning (Ry let me sleep in till 9 this morning, so I have

to let him sleep in till 9 tomorrow this morning)

**ETA**Here you go, Kim….
(these DCWV cardstock papers scan horribly… they are "like" Bazzil but a little more textured… kwim? And, the colors are a bit off.  And, remember the photos are "draft printed" on regular computer paper… so they look REALLY crappy)

(this one the "Holland" is put in with Photoshop… I have to wait until the "real" pictures are on the page to put the title)