Scrapster

It’s been 6 months since I quit all of my creative teams. Six months that I was ’scrap-free’ except for 1 or 2 pages I did. That didn’t happen because I was suddenly sick of scrapbooking. It happened because I had a lot of other stuff going on in my professional life. Stuff I was obsessing on. And people who know me will confirm: I’m the kind of girl that can’t have 2 obsessions at the same time!

About a month ago, my family and I brought a visit to the Zoo. It was our third visit in 5 years, and like the other times, I took plenty of photos. As I was looking at those pictures on my computer, a lot of pleasant memories came back of our last visit, 3 years ago. Some funny, memorable things happened back then, and I realized those memories where just collecting dust on my pc, I had never scrapped them or have them printed. In fact, those memories are not alone. My oldest is 7 years old and hasn’t got one complete album. Not even a regular photo album. All just digital files and a half finished paper scrapbook of her first year. My baby boy on the other hand is almost 2 and I have made a beautiful baby book for him. It’s entirely digitally scrapped and professionally printed and bound into a hardcover book. This is so not fair for my daughter!

So I scrapped. I scrapped  pictures from our visit to another zoo 6 years ago. And it felt like coming home. It’s amazing how one particular hobby can still stick with me after 6 years and how I can still LOVE it. I never had that with any other hobbies!

The virus bit me again and I scrapped another page. And another one. All with photos from 3, 4, 5 or 6 years ago.

Then I visited the forums at The Sweet Shoppe and I decided to participate in the challenges again, this month’s portfolio really spoke to me. One of the challenges lead me to a post on the SSD blog, where Krista (one of the Sugar Babes) explained how she organizes her scrapping procedure. The way she organizes her stuff was pretty similar to mine, but one thing in particular struck me: the way she prepares her photos before she scraps them!!

She basicly browses her photos every month or so and decides which ones will end up in one of her layouts. She then puts the photos in separate tiff files, and already gives a name to that file like she would name her page (including the date). Those tiff’s are then saved in her ‘to scrap’ folder. That way she always has an overview of the pages she still needs to scrap and she can easily pick a set of photos that would go with a particular kit (or the other way around).

I really saw a light bulb after reading that post and I started doing the same thing. I just LOVE how easy it is now to start a new page! I got so excited on this better way of organizing that it didn’t stop there. I pushed that organization through to my scrapstuff and I started tagging my entire stash in ACDSee. It was a tedious job I spent days on, but it was SO worth it!!

Scrapping is such a blast right now and I scrap daily again. In a very organized way.

Here is that page that started it all again.

So you thought I had abandonned this blog, didn’t you? I admit, I have been neglecting it terribly. And not only this blog, also my good old dear hobby: scrapbooking! I took a loooong break, that’s for sure. In February I have decided to leave all of my Creative teams. I did that with a heavy heart because I was in some amazing teams and I really loved them. But it was the right thing to do. I had a lot of things on my mind - I’m in the middle of starting a new business - but I also felt the danger of ‘overscrapping’ myself… Do you know what I mean? Being on a lot of CT’s is great, you get to scrap for free 100%, but the designers need their pages ofcourse, and they need them quick. So I found myself scrapping every night, often 2 or 3 pages a night and it became a task rather than an enjoyment. So quitting my teams was the right thing to do for me. I don’t scrap that often anymore, but when I feel like it, I enjoy browsing the stores and buying the kits that I love!

The last kit I bought was Heart Window by Lorie Davison. I have nearly all her kits, she is so talented and her kits are so stuffed that I certainly don’t mind paying $14 for them! You can see the page I did with it at the bottom of this post!

One of the reasons I’ve been so quiet is that I’ve been busy building another blog. And I did it from scratch! I designed the entire layout in Photoshop, and my hubby, who is a very talented Drupal developper, did all the coding. It’s in Dutch, but if you’re interested to see it, here’s the link: http://www.feestprints.be
 

My international readers can skip the next paragraph, but I would like to say a bit more about it to my Dutch readers.

Dus mijn beste vrienden, bij deze wil ik jullie graag uitnodigen om mij ook eens een bezoekje te brengen op mijn nieuwe blog! Hij is in het Nederlands en je vindt er inspiratie over feesten. Omdat ik de voorbije maanden verschillende kinderfeestjes heb gegeven, en ik daarbij op zoek ben gegaan naar inspiratie online, is het me opgevallen dat er in Amerika honderden blogs zijn over feestplanning - vol met decoratietips, ideeën voor traktaties, themafeestjes enzovoort- en in het Nederlands… niet één! Ik vind dat echt doodzonde. Ik kan er ontzettend van genieten om een themafeestje te organiseren, het is echt een hobby van me om binnen een bepaald thema alles op elkaar af te stemmen, en mijn mond viel open van verbazing bij de foto’s van dat soort themafeestjes in Amerika! Die inspiratie wil ik graag delen op mijn blog. Je vindt er artikels over feestdecoratie, themafeestjes, traktaties, organisatie enzovoort. Ik deel er mijn eigen ervaring met kinderfeestjes, mijn eigen creaties en ideeën, maar ook heel veel inspiratie die ik -na lang zoeken - online heb gevonden. Er staat trouwens ook een gratis printable op voor vaderdag en ik ben van plan om nog veel meer freebies te posten!  Het zou leuk zijn als mijn blog een go-to place kon worden voor feestjesvierders in de Lage Landen Er staat reeds een verslag op van het prinsessenfeestje dat ik voor mijn dochter gegeven heb, en binnenkort volgt een verslag van haar communiefeest. Iedereen is ook welkom om zelf ideeën door te sturen, dus heb je zelf iets leuks gemaakt dat kan dienen voor op een feestje (decoratie, een traktatie of gerecht ofzo) dan mag je dat altijd doorsturen en dan publiceer ik het op mijn blog!  Dus misschien tot ziens op Feestprints!

Here’s my page with Heart Window! I made it for my little niece who does her first communion today

Misty Mareda released a FABULOUS new kit! It’s a fall kit, but not in the traditional way. I just LOVE the colors and patterns in it. And look at that adorable scarecrow!!

Here is my page with it:

I’m thrilled that this page made it to the Gallery Standouts at DST!

And at Matrioshki Scrap Store, there’s a new designer. She’s called ‘KandI designs" and she has definitely made a fabulous debut with a gorgeous, outstanding kit!!

Secret Attic:

You wouldn’t believe how huge this kit is: 19 papers and 135 elements!

This is my page with it:

And I normally don’t do this, but I stumbled across a lot of gorgeous pages with this kit in the galleries, and this one just stands out so much! It’s one of the prettiest pages I have seen in a while, so I wanted to post it on my blog. It’s made by shadelia. You shoudl see her gallery, it’s full of beautiful pages! The image is linked, so if you have some time, please leave her a comment!

And then I have some exciting news!! I got accepted on the Creative Team of Jennifer Barrette! Woohoow!
I’m so excited because I really adore her products and scrapping with them is just… devine
Here are two pages I already made for her:

This one got picked as a standout on the Gallery Standouts Blog!

And this one is a sneak peek of a gorgeous kit she will re-release tomorrow:

As you can see, I’m really enjoying my scrapping time!

Don’t forget: only 8 more days to pick up my store deal at Oscraps! After that my designs will be gone!