So Glad to be Home!

The trip to Nashville was wonderful, but I'm such a homebody that I was sooo glad to be at home last night! We didn't get too many pics of the family because as you can tell by this one, Clayton was on a "smiling for the camera" strike . . . he's getting independent like that!! But I did want to share it because after all, it is a moment in our lives captured forever, right? The hotel was absolutely beautiful, and I've got several pics of the garden conservatory that I'll be sharing soon. I was pretty proud of myself because with Brian's help I shot several things strictly on Av mode---slowly but surely I'm learning more and more about that camera and photography in general. But it takes so much practice, I really need to be shooting pictures every single day to actually get the hang of it.

So many of you are on me about sharing my projects so I'll share my favorite first. The class was taught be Vanessa Hudson and it's the one that I had my greatest AHA! moment in. She had one of those ideas that you just say to yourself "why didn't I think of that?" We used albums from Pioneer that are made to hold 4 x 6 photos. We basically made title pages for each section of photographs and then cut them in half so they would fit in the 4 x 6 slots! These particular albums have a spot on the left side of the photos for small journaling blurbs so you can still add commentary as you would on a layout. The photos we used were of just ordinary, everyday life, but she also showed us examples of other ways to use this idea. She had all of her Disney pics in an album with different sections, each one with it's own "scrapped" title page. She talked about how she still scraps certain pics, but she has all of them in one place for just regular viewing. Now I know what to do with all of these vacation pics that I don't necessarily want to scrap an entire layout for, but I do want to do something "cute" with them! And all the lake pictures too! Now, see? Aren't you kicking yourself for not thinking of this before now?? I love the idea simply because the pics are scrapbooked in a way (and even have some journaling), but I didn't have to do a whole mini-album of layouts to get the job done. Adding a little something more than just throwing them in an album by themselves if you know what I mean . . . and I know you other scrapbookers out there know what I mean!! We feel like we have to scrap every single picture from now until doomsday, and that it's some kind of scrapbook sin to put them in an album alone with no journaling or embellishments--this method allows for a combination of both!

So here's my album (Vanessa's design)--all the diecuts are from AccuCut (I'm thinking I NEEEEEED one of these!). I had all my pics printed in black and white because I wasn't sure how they would be used, but I'm thinking I'll slowly replace them with their color counterparts since I see the overall design now. I'm pretty darn proud of the little thing--I've already got it sitting on my coffee table!

Home: pictures of and around the house

Whatcha Up To?: random snapshots of the family doing what they do

What's For Dinner?: what we eat

On the Go: places we go

For the Love of Everything: things that I love! (gotta make it my scrapbook, right???)