Life seems to have taken on a whirlwind quality over the past 3 years since I began to keep a blog. Rather than continuing to have attending regularly to my blog as something I feel is "something I should be doing" in addition to everything else in my life, it's time to make a change of purpose. I will continue to use it as a record of books I have read as that is a hobby that I have loved reviving over the past few years. Reading has always been a huge part of my life and it seems that over the years, it has taken a backseat to a lot of other interests. I think this began as I was raising my 3 children and at that point, I was out of the habit of reading on a regular basis. Over the past few years though, it's a daily part of my life again and I am loving it. I have found a few authors that write in a style that keeps my interest and makes me want to keep reading. I am sure there are many others out there to try and I will continue to add new ones along the way. With the fact that I read for short periods at a time, I need books that move along quickly and aren't too muddled down in lengthy descriptions but have plots that are constantly evolving without too much attention from me. I have found it very satisfying to be able to look through the listing of books I have read in the past few years. It makes me want to read even more!
With the addition of personal sites to Shutterfly's website, I am still toying with the idea of whether I want to continue posting my layouts and/or photos to my blog or simply use the Shutterfly personal blog as a place for photo related items. It is just another thing to be done and I am at a point in my life where time is of a premium again and the little "luxuries" don't seem to be as important. With the addition of our sweet little granddaughter, Makenzie Shay, on January 13th of this year, my time spent working with photos and layouts and ultimately, Shutterfly books will be even more of a priority.
This past year I have had the opportunity to create quite a few photo books through Shutterfly of different types and am so pleased with the results. I have been able to show them to family and friends and it has prompted them to check out the Shutterfly site and find what types of products they offer that will work for their photo needs. I am pleased to be associated with the company as part of their Digital Scrapbooking Advisory team as they offer so many great products that work not only for digital scrappers but for anyone who takes photos on a regular basis.
The majority of my layouts are posted in my gallery at Scrapbook-Elements. With the addition of a new photo subject, I get to make a bit of a change in my scrapping and actually add the color PINK to my layouts! :) It's already been fun using pink and hearts and bits of flowers and fluff. I created a brag book album for our grandson, Hayden, and I imagine I will do the same for Makenzie along with all of my other scrapping in the 12x12 size.
This year there has been a lot of hub-bub around the digital scrapping community about Project 365. I think that this can as easily be Project 52 or Project 12 because not everyone has the ability, desire or ambition to take photos each day of the year, and then take the time to put them into some sort of layout for record keeping. The cost of this type of a project can be rather prohibitive as well. I prefer the idea of a year in review type of thing with 12 sets of 2 page layouts for each month, which would result in a fabulous 24 page Shutterfly book at the end of the year. Each December digital scrappers all around are scrambling to get their calendars done for the next year or put together year in review books to use as gifts. This Project 12 would definitely take the last minute pressure off.
Last year I scrapped 200 layouts of some kind. Some of them were quick pages, some used templates and some were created by me from the bottom up. I also created several 8.5x11" photo books through Shutterfly and believe it or not, those can be very time consuming to create as you are working with some very specific sizes, orientation and period of time for the most part. I also used 2 of the pre-designed Shutterfly books - Everyday Life and Year in Review - so between all that I did this past year, I have opted to set my goal for layouts to be scrapped at 365. So far this year, I have completed 22 of them so I feel that I've made a pretty good start.
My cousin recently sent me a large envelope of very old family photos so I will be working on scanning those soon and will take the opportunity to get some of my own older photos scanned so I can start working on some layouts of the years past of my own parents, myself and my children.
Adding all of this to my schedule that is heavily involved with the admin work of running my portion of Scrapbook-Elements, extra duties that I have been required to take on due to my husband's broken ankle at the beginning of December, and the privilege of taking care of Hayden and soon, Kenzie on a regular basis, I am pretty busy and the days fly by way too quickly. Therefore updates will be far and few between here on ye olde blog and I am happy to have made the decision as focus on my family is the most important thing in my life.
