Glitter, Scrapping, and the Band Flies to Amsterdam

I've been busy downloading glitter digital scrapbooking freebies this week. Flerg is a new designer that has some interesting work with GLITTER and several freebies on her blog. I'm usually not a "glittery" person, but a little limited use of glitter can make layouts extra special.

Kevin has started to become interested in the mechanics of my digital artistry. He's trying to get me to use Photoshop more and create my own papers, elements, even glitter rather than using what designers have made. Um... it's hard! I'm not sure that I have the patience to create my own when I know that I can pay someone else a few dollars to do it for me. Kevin scanned a picture of the pink fabric from the Hannah Banana jammies (that mysteriously jumped into my cart at Target last week) to make a background for me. Isn't that sweet? Also bought me a digital scrapbooking guide published by Better Homes and Gardens at Wal-mart to try to learn how to make my own stuff. Some of the ideas are pretty cool, like I can see scanning an image of a spatula to use it as an element when making a page about baking cookies with the kids. That makes sense.

A high school classmate came over tonight to learn about digital scrapbooking. She's a traditional scrapper, and wanted to see how this was done. It always amazes me to hear about traditional scrapbookers spending ALL DAY at a workshop to make three pages, and spending hundreds of dollars at scrapbooking stores and for special dye-cutting equipment.

I've tried traditional srapbooking, and found it completely frustrating. I can't imagine driving over half an hour to the nearest store to buy your stuff, having plan what you need while in the store feeling overwhelmed by all of the stuff, paying oodles of money, bringing it home and making a mess all over the kitchen table with little bits here and there, getting frustrated when something doesn't look write, and it's now ruined because it's all glued down or the paper is already cut and you just can't put it back together. With digital scrapbooking I can use the same favorite stuff over and over, gets lots of freebies to work with to test out a designer's stuff before I buy from them, and do it all from the comfort of my home office in my jammies at 2am while eating cookies. The only mess I make is when I drop cookie crumbs on the floor, but Sedona takes care of gobbling those up. Thanks, Babydog.

I just learned of this idea tonight and think it is sooooo cute. People are making little photo books out of Altoids tins! My mom and dad are Altoids fans and usually have several flavors in the car at one time, and I'm going to have to ask them to start saving their tins for me. I would love to make the grandmas both little baby brag books that fit into Altoids tins. How cute!!!

Rock Band Update:
Our Rock Band "Sedona Sunrise" has been doing really well. We just built up a big enough fan base to get our own jet, and flew to Amsterdam for a gig tonight. I do need to work on my Metallica. I can only score three stars on "Enter Sandman," but I'd rather be playing songs like Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." My brother-in-law is a drummer. Maybe he can give me a few pointers at family Christmas tomorrow. Dear adoption agency, you're free to call anytime, you know... even when I'm in the middle of drum solos. Our band will continue on our European tour this week, but we'll still take your calls... even from Paris. The tour must go on, and we just can't sit around home waiting for that referral phone call.