Don’t be jealous, but I had some alone time this weekend. Unheard of, right? My parents keep the girls for the weekend about once every 4-6 weeks and that is great for my husband and I as well as them. This weekend my husband took the girls to his sister’s house. I encouraged them to go a little early since their cousins had Friday off school even though I needed to stay home and teach piano. Did I miss hanging out with the family? Sure…but I also didn’t hate being alone. I had an introvert’s vacation!

I did some housework, worked on some lesson planning, and of course did some scrapbooking! Here are some recent layouts. Not all are from this weekend though!

Here are some fun layouts from our one-day, whirl-wind trip to Disney last year. I’m working on our more recent trip now! I’m currently learning all about the newest craze in both traditional and digital scrapbooking: Pockets! I love this stream-lined, easy on the eyes as well as fast to create. I will probably continue to use both a more traditional styled layout as well as the pockets, but this new type is just lovely!

When I scrapbook I do not have any one particular way I follow, except that I like for my layouts to look as much like traditional paper layouts as possible. So how do I do that?

1. Learn how to shadow! Fortunately when you are just a newbie programs like Photoshop intuitively help you out with easy to use shadowing tools.

2. Use a handwriting font rather than a typed font for the journaling. I love using all sorts of different varieties of fonts, but for journaling I usually use a font which looks like handwriting. I’m resarching how to create my own font of my own personal handwriting and will update once I find more out about this!

3. Use templates. Wow! When I first began digi scrapping I used a program which I bought for free from Amazon. It functioned, but I never could use any of the wonderful templates available. While I’m grateful for the experience I gained by creating my own layouts and learning what style I liked through trial and error I am in love with psd templates for Photoshop!!! I am scrapping incredibly quickly now. even I modifying the template some, having more than just an empty page to start off with has really stream-lined my efforts. This kit was created with a template and kit from British Designs.

4. Use quality digital kits with coordinating elements and papers. While using only free things may seem fine and good, I think it is helpful to purchase a few high quality kits. If you get a few basics with various colors to begin, you can always ask for paypal gift cards. This is how I am building my digi srapboooking stash. I also have a handful of designers I really, really like who I follow closely on facebook and their blogs so I can snag freebies when they are available! I like kits with uniquely themed elements to enhance my layouts.

5. Network! There are an incredible amount of forums and digital galleries out there. Some are themed for things like Disney World. Others are unique for designers. Some are wide open! My two personal favorites are Pixel Scrapper and Mouse Scrappers. Nearly every forum I’ve participated in has monthly or weekly challenges which often results in some pretty great digital prizes!