I’m going to be taking this week off from blogging so I can have a little extra holiday time. I’ll be back on December 27th and I have lots of great stuff planned for the new year. I hope you have a happy holiday season!

I know some scrappers like to get together in person or virtually on Digi Scrap Day (the first Saturday in October) so I think it’s helpful to get your supplies purchased and downloaded to prepare for some fun creative time.

I have some new and exciting designs this time - they are a little different than anything I’ve done before and I’m really excited about them!

August 2021 was an unusual month (aren’t they all now?) full of tough news in the world and a few fun getaways for our family. We attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival after missing it last year for the pandemic. They required masks for indoor plays and we mostly saw outdoor plays. It still felt odd to be in such large groups.

Jeff, Alex, and I traveled to Hawaii and went to the island of Lana’i. We had an amazing trip there and we felt lucky to squeeze it in right before the Hawaii Governor asked tourists to stop their visits until the end of October. Everyone in Hawaii was really great about wearing masks. and the state of Hawaii has very strict protocols about requiring vaccines. We felt much safer there than we do at home in Utah.

Simple scrapbooking doesn't mean plain or boring, it's a style that helps you keep the focus on your photos and story through clean design. I’m excited to share some tips and ideas for how to use the techniques of clean scrapbooking. I hope you enjoy the tutorial!

Managing scanned and digital photos can be a very overwhelming task! I’m always looking for helpful resources to find ways to get organized when it comes to photo management. This free video from Roots Tech 2021 has some really good information. It is a tad dry, but worth watching and the presenter has a charming British accent. The information on file naming, metadata, and tags is very useful so be sure to save this one!

I’ve got a brand new tutorial to share and I’m really excited about it. I’ve literally spent days and days working on it and I was waiting til everyone went to bed tonight to record it so there wouldn’t be any background noise. I had some difficulty getting my video segments to record properly and finally got that worked out by about 11:15 p.m. No sweat, everything was ready to go and I just needed to hit record and go through everything I had prepared. Suddenly, the microphone wouldn’t appear in my list of devices. I had tested it several times throughout the evening so I have no idea what happened. I’m now writing this at 1:00 a..m. and I have to admit defeat for now and head to bed.

I’ve used Feedly for years to follow blogs, but I’ve recently been enjoying Bloglovin and seem to get more followers there. I’m updating my rss feed there with this post.

I especially like using their mobile app.

I’ve been searching Pinterest and the internet to try to find pictures of several photobook albums displayed on a bookshelf. I’ve had a hard time finding what I’m looking for. Maybe nobody has completed that many? lol! Or maybe they just haven’t thought to take a picture of them on a shelf. Most online images of photo books seem to share what the inside looks like. Of course, I’m very interested in that too - but I have been trying to figure out what I want my bookshelf to look like when I have multiple albums finished because that will influence what I decide to use for the covers. It’s a way to scrap with the end in mind.

I’m always grateful for my monthly roundup habits and my favorite way to use these prompts is right on a scrapbook page. I love adding details to my THIS MONTH cards and putting them all on a page with photos and a few fun cards to make it complete. Here’s what July looked like:

Today is a holiday in the state of Utah. The 24th of July is known as Pioneer Day around here because that is the date that the Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake valley (in 1847) and decided to call this home. The 24th is often just as big of a deal as the 4th of July around here. There is a big parade downtown + a marathon and many people gather for barbecues, picnics, and fireworks.