Scrapbooking...a new way!

So let's face it, I am not getting a lot of scrapbooking done these days.  It is driving me a little nuts, because I am getting more and more behind, but I just don't find the time these days.

So, when there was a great Plum District deal the other day from 

Shutterfly for an 8x8 photo book, I bought it...thinking that this might be my new way to scrapbook!

My goal has always been to do a book for every 5 years of the girls life...well, next June they will be 5 and I don't have very many pages done in the last 5 years.  

I am hoping these Shutterfly books will help!

I started working on Mara's book the other day and it is still going to take some time, but I am hoping that it goes a little faster, when I get faster at creating them on-line.

Here is my book so far, not much to it yet.   I worked on it for about 30 minutes and that is all I did.  I need to figure out what milestones I want to capture in this book from one to five.  And the other problem, I have to buy this book by the end of this year...so half of 2012 will be missing...not sure what I am going to do about that one yet!

Please let me know if you have used Shutterfly to create photo books in the past. 
I would LOVE any tips or tricks on creating one.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a wide range of artful designs and embellishments to choose from.

scrapbook tuesday

i cannot take any credit for these pages on worked on today!  i got the idea from ali edwards...she is my favorite and i just love, love her ideas!

i worked mara's 2 year pictures and i love the outcome of these 2 pages!  the most time consuming part was getting the words to print in the right place on the paper!  all in all these 2 pages took me a little over an hour, not too bad. 

a little tip...don't worry about getting the number or letter perfect...you can just sew over a few of the letters or words...that is okay!  i cut out a number 2 and traced it on my paper after i printed the words on the card stock. i added some glitter to the number, because i felt they needed something a little more.  i am going to do the same layout in kaylin's book, but try something a little different with the words...hopefully my idea will work!

the second page, i created a collage in picasa, which was 8x8 and then i cut it down.  this page i am still working on...thinking of adding some words above the collage, but not sure what yet, so i am waiting on sticking everything down yet...i need to look at it for a few days and figure it out.

 i feel good about the process i am making on mara's book so far.  there are a lot of things that i am not scrapbooking, just because i don't have the time.  but, i am going to use some of the pictures that didn't make a page for a year-end recap...like i did here:

 using the baseball cards is so easy to get a lot of pictures that didn't make a page in the book still.

i hope one day they will treasure these books!

scrapbook tuesday!

i didn't get very far on working on the digital pages that i wanted to.  i was hoping to get all of 2009 done for mara's book...didn't happen yet!  i had some major computer issues that took me over an hour to fix, but now i am up and running again.

i did manage to get 2 pages done and they went very fast.  here is the outcome:

very simple 

now i just have to get them printed and hope they look okay when i do!  i am going to use costco, because it is quick, easy and cheap. 
i am going to add a lock of mara's hair to the 'first hair cut' page.  they are very simple, because i am testing this digital scrapbooking out...see what i think of it.

i have been looking on line for some great freebies for digital scrapbooking and have a few great websites to share with you!
signature scrapbooks- they have a great section of freebies and great prices on other digital items as well
shabbyprincess- great freebies out there.  lots of fun stuff, from paper, letters, ribbons and embellishments!
ali edwards- she always shares a few digital elements here and there on her blog.  she just shared an Easter one!  ali is a favorite of mine...if all my pages could look like hers, i would be in heaven!
freedigitalscrapbooking- again, lots of stuff on this site for free.  paper, layouts, kits, embellishments and letters!

if you have some favorite websites for digital scrapbooking, please share them!  i am always on the hunt for more. 
happy tuesday!