Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! And happy birthday, mom! Some friends invited us to go to Bear Lake with them for the weekend, so as soon as my babysitting kids leave we are taking off. Which means I need to go pack instead of scrapping. But I'm in such a festive mood! (The kids are all asleep if you are wondering how in the world I am completing scrapbook pages right now.)

P.S. On a totally different side note, if you didn't know before that I LOVE digital scrapbooking, here's another reason why: I can create a layout like this, then copy it (within seconds) and paste a different picture in it and change the title. And now I have a layout for each of the kids' books. Before Emery was born I used to dread having to create duplicate layouts of the same event so they would both have one in their book. But wa-laa! Digital is my perfect solution.

Questions answered:

I used Michelle Coleman's Freedom kit. It was on sale for $1 last week. Little Dreamer Designs is one of my favorite sites, and they have their $ sale on Wednesdays. Scrapartist is also another great site, and they have a $ sale on Fridays. I like to shop on those days :). There are so many great sites though.... And so many sales going on all the time. And so many freebies to be found if you don't want to purchase anything. See my side bar for a few of my fav sites (which I haven't updated in a while).

The printing issue was what stopped me from completely converting to digital for a long time, but there are a lot more options now. You can print a 12x12 at places like Costco or shutterfly.com. I like the 11x8.5 size, and those can be printed at these places too. Or you can print an 8x8 on an 8x10 photo paper on your home printer or at Walmart or another photo printing place, and then crop off the excess. Some people then add traditional scrapbooking elements, or just slip it in a page protector and add it to their scrapbook. That way if you don't want to go completely digital you can mix with traditional in your albums. I haven't personally done this, so I don't really know how it turns out. Right now I have all my layouts saved on my external hard drive (and I really need to back them up on a CD.) My plan is to finish out a year (ex. Ryan's first year, or our family 2008), and then have it all printed in a hardbound book from Shutterfly. I made Jared a small book for Christmas last year and had it printed there, and I was really happy with the quality. I've heard Heritage Makers also does an amazing job printing their albums. I think they are even leather bound.