I was just reading Cindy's blog and she mentioned scrapping this weekend. I really miss getting together with a group of other scrappers and playing with our photos and paper. I do meet with other paper artists each week, but it isn't scrap time. I have a huge and lovely cabana room available to me here at our condos and would love to scrap with others there. But how do I find scrappers in Bellevue, Washington? Does anyone have any ideas to share with me?

Just completed another layout from a challenge in Cynthia's book. This book really has my creative juices running again. I felt like I was in a never ending slump and that is definetly over. Yeah!!! Anyway here is the latest from the same challenge as yesterdays layout only this is one of my favorite things.This is my list of materials. I used PSE 6 . The paper is Aqinnah, from Designer Digitals Esthers papers, the heart and bow areby Michelle Coleman from the Memory Makers Bohemian kit and the font is Chaucer.

This is going to be interesting. The first challenge from the new book and I am already changing it. The challenge reads,"Scrap a page about a favorite object of yours." I scrapped a page about a favorite object of Jon's. I will do one of mine tomorrow. This was our latest purchase and a very special one as the journaling points out. It is a hybrid layout with the journaling in a pocket on the back and a few of the words ( the & best) cut out and applied with glue dots. Everything else was completed on PSE 6 using a ScrapArtist kit by Lile Khadfield called "Circle of Friends." This was such a relaxing and enjoyable experience. Once again nothing like my usual style. Perhaps when I finish enough of the challenges I will have to redefine my style.

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The book that I won, "Cut Loose" came yesterday and I spent the better part of the day reading it from cover to cover. I had been watching (lurking) Crystal's web page for some time and had seen some of her work. I wanted to buy this book and was thrilled to win it. Now I must say that anyone who buys this book is a winner. It is so much fun to read and I already have sticky notes posted on several of the pages. I am anxious to begin this journey. I'll try to post a few of my pages for the first challenges next week. Al least for the ones that I have marked with ideas already. Thank you Crystal for such a wonderful work. Now if she could only convince the powers that be to let her teach in the greater Pacific Northwest. ... I need to let you know what I used on this L/O. The papers and the the flower are from Little Dreamers, lovey dovey kit. The crumpled corner is from Scrap Girls and the fonts are Bradley Hand, Impact and Amazon BT. This was done on PSE 6. It was fast and fun and not like me at all, thus my first attempt at cutting loose.

I spent some time this weekend playing with the photos from my birthday using the tutorial from Crystal's site. I had a tough time with the first one and then things kind of clicked. Here are a couple of the before and afters.The difference is wonderful. Thanks Crystal for the help.