"It's America" Layout Challenge

I LOVE 4th of July celebrations! I love the picnics and fireworks and parades and the feeling that always comes over me at some point during the day of how truly blessed we are to live in this amazing country.
When I was in NY this weekend with my daughter, I heard a song that inspired a layout idea I can't wait to try. It's a Rodney Atkins song called "It's America" - here's the chorus:

It's a high school prom
It's a Springstein song
It's a welcome home parade
It's a man on the moon
And fireflies in June
Kids sellin lemonade
It's cities and farms
And open arms
One nation under God
It's America

So here's the challenge... Create a layout with photos from your family that represent life in America. What are some other things you can think of? Parades? Eating ice cream? Laying in a hammock? A family picnic? Take your camera with you this weekend and be mindful of the wonderful things all around us. When you see something great - click it! Leave a comment here with your ideas and when your layout is complete - go to my Facebook Page and post it!

I plan to use the Fanfare papers to create my layout. They have such great, patriotic colors and are very "America"! :) Click here to see the Fanfare products & order yours!

Trees & Things

Hi everyone!

It's been a whirlwind here lately - my daughter, Chelsea, graduated from college and my son, Jake, graduated from high school ON THE SAME DAY (you can only imagine!). We left two days later for a 2 week vacation - - but not before finding an apartment for Chelsea in NYC. Yes indeedy! My head is spinning! But it's all great and has been a lot of fun!

I just love the parks in NY and plan to spend a lot of time in them when visiting Chelsea - Shakespeare in the Park, farmers markets, picnics by the lake, people watching.... The CTMH stamp set - Trees & Things - will be perfect for embellishing these photo layouts, as well as our old fishing trips, camping and hikes. And CTMH has just come out with a new YouTube video that gave me lots of extra inspiration for using this great set. I hope it helps get your creative juices flowing, too! I'm ordering mine tomorrow. Click here to order yours, too!

Keeping the Memories

I just love the YouTube video CTMH created to introduce Studio J! It really touches on a great point... you have tons of digital photos on your computer, but will these really tell your story to your children, grandchildren and beyond? Remember how much you loved flipping through your parent's photo albums and reminiscing? Because they were using film, they had fewer photos that captured the moments than we do. Will paging through hundreds of photos on a computer screen really deliver the same feel as we had when we curled up in a chair with an album?

And what about the story? Even those of us who scrapbook often leave out the most important part of the page - journaling. We don't like our handwriting, or don't know where to add it, or don't have the right color marker - - the excuses are endless. One of my favorite parts about Studio J is it has built-in journaling blocks that make it super easy to add a few lines describing the event. Just click the 'scale font' box and it will even allow you to write as little or as much as you'd like and automatically size the text to fit. Perfect!!

Many of us have wonderful intentions, but time is not always on our side and before we know it, we're years behind on our scrapping. Don't become your own worst enemy!! Studio J is such a simple way to stay ahead of the game (or to do a little 'catching up'). Even if you're a hard-core 'traditionalist', isn't having something better than nothing?

So watch this video and let me know if it inspires you to tell your story and 'keep the memories'. It worked for me! Scroll down and check out the layout I did the other night (while I'm still on vacation!! :)

This is one of the layouts I've completed already! I did one while waiting for my turn in the bathroom, another one when the rest of the family decided to sleep in one day. Amazing! It will feel so great to have a big chunk of my photos scrapped before I even get back home... Give it a whirl! Don't forget - - during the month of June CTMH is gifting everyone a free JPG file absolutely free. It's a great time to try it and you'll see what a wonderful tool it really is. Contact me if you have any questions.