Scrapbooking on the brain

I've been waking up ... or more accurately, not sleeping ... because of all the scrapbooking-related stuff buzzing through my brain these days. Maybe it's because school has started again and I have a little more time to scrap since our schedule is a bit more regular. Or maybe it's because I've recently given myself permission to venture outside my normal virtual hangouts to explore some new designers, both of pages and products. Perhaps it's because I just found out this week that one of my layouts has been chosen by Creating Keepsakes magazine for publication in their January 2010 issue (yay!!). It might be because the online class I signed up for a couple months ago in which we create an all-about-me type of scrapbook finally started this week. Or it could possibly be because I believe I have finally hit upon the right combination of scrapbooking, writing, web & other skills in my most recent business brainstorm. Whatever the reason - probably a combination of all of the above - I've been rather consumed lately with thinking, playing, shopping, wandering & designing in the scrapbook realm.
I plan to do more of this over this nice long weekend. Jacques, Kody, Skylar & our neighbor Kevin left this morning for Esther Lake for a weekend of hunting & fishing with Kody's brand new compound bow. That leaves Karstin, Danica & me home alone for a few days of relative peace & quiet. I've already had a chance to do a little scrapping this morning, finishing up a layout I started last night about Kody's transition from cute "little piggy" days to one filled with "big boy toys."
 
While I'm on the subject of recent scrapbooking, I've also done a handful of pages highlighting Skylar's venture into preschool. She is thrilled to be going to Head Start and has made the transition quite easily so far. She will get to attend for two years and then, believe it or not, it will be time for kindgergarten already! Hard to believe ...
 

The whole transition to preschool got me thinking about how grown up Skylar is getting, but at the same time how she refuses to let go of some of her more baby-like ways, such as insisting on keeping that dang binkie in her mouth. So I woke up Thursday thinking about how I could document the irony of it all, which led to this...
 
This type of layout is an example of my favorite type of scrapbooking - telling the stories of the lives of myself & my family. It is this type of scrapbooking that is the basis of my newest business plan. I'm not ready to share details, but I will say this - I do not plan to actually scrapbook for other people for pay or design digital supplies for scrapbookers. Instead, I plan to provide some unique resources that hopefully will help all types of scrapbookers share their stories and ideally, allow me to make a career of this hobby that I love. More details to follow, once I'm ready to launch... :)
I do occasionally do a layout just for the sake of making a pretty page, especially if I have a photo I particularly like. This is one of my recent examples...

I took that photo while Danica & I were in San Antonio last month. She was wandering around the rock courtyard in front of the Alamo in her bare feet. Isn't she a cutie??
I have tons of other pages on my mind right now that I'd like to get done ... Karstin just started high school, as well as his first year on the boys x-country team - both of which I plan to document. I also have the entire month of July to somehow record, though it's a bit overwhelming because I took over 1,000 photos that month and I'm not sure what I want to pull out and scrapbook. I did a 4th of July album highlighting the Rutten family reunion, which you can view here. We also spent a week at Pelican Lake, which accounts for about half of the photos for the month...
Part of the reason I didn't document much of July is I was so busy last month putting together my San Antonio album, which you can see here. I also realized one day about a week ago just GOOD things have been going lately. So I documented that with this...

One of the things hinted at on the above layouts warranted a page all its own ... my neighbor & I decided about a month ago that we wanted to get to know our neighbors a bit better, especially since several of them have young kids and are relatively new to our neighborhood. So, we planned a "Summer's End East Broadway BBQ" block party. It was a big hit and we've had several people thanking us afterward for putting it together. The moms on the block even went out for margaritas after the BBQ, which was tons of fun. Hopefully we'll continue to get together, now that the ice has been broken. Here's the page I did about the BBQ...
 
This past month I also did a page about Danica that I like ... I've gotten in the habit of calling her "doodlebug" for some reason. Not sure why, but it fits her...
 
I want to do another page about her soon, documenting all the cute new things she's learning & doing right now. For example, she now waves bye-bye, says "boo" when playing peek-a-boo while changing her diaper, points & says "that," can make a ride-on toy go forward by walking her feet along the ground, sleeps through the night all alone in a crib by herself, has finally started napping in a crib instead of the laundry basket, and lots of other adorable things like that.
Speaking of my sweet baby, she is now demanding my attention after playing very nicely while I've been writing this post. That's my cue to wrap it up... one last thing - a quick thank you to everyone who voted for my entry in the Designer Digitals "Summer's End" contest. I didn't win, but I think I had the 4th or 5th highest number of votes, which is cool. Here's the page I finally entered ...
 
More updates on all of the above coming soon ... I hope!! :)