Stamping & Scrapping with Jen

My Digital Studio: High School Reunion Scrapbook Layout

This is the last page in my high school reunion album.  It is all done with My Digital Studio and focuses on one main photo.  We tried to get a shot with all 80 of us in it, and it kinda worked, so I think this one was the best I got.  I think the next 5 years will go by fast, and it seems like everyone will want to get together again, so please let me know if you have any good ideas.  If there is something "different" we could do, that would be great.  It would have to be something that was cool enough to have everyone travel to attend, but I don't want to do the whole big formal party thing.  Any thoughts out there?

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My Digital Studio Scrapbook Page to Share

Here is another scrapbook page from my Reunion Album which I created with My Digital Studio.  The layout is one of the standard options for an 8x8 album, and I had so many shots of so many people that it was one I used more than once!  I liked the fact that there were so many standard choices for layouts that were for lots of pictures.

In the bigger photo on this particular page, you can see me with my friends Heidi and Kim.  Both Heidi & Kim graduated from my high school, but were two years behind me.  Heidi (in the middle) was my amazing friend who came & took all the photos at the reunion.  Heidi is also a fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, and I am lucky to say that she is in my downline!!  Kim married Kyle, a guy I graduated with.  (You can see us in the photo on the left in the middle.) Both Heidi & Kim scrapbook with us all the time at our crop weekends, and it's so much fun to hang out with them!!

As for the digital elements to this page, I just used a patterned paper background and one little stamp (from Extreme Elements) that I made white, but then took away some of the opacity so you can see through it a little bit.

There are so many things you can do with MDS - I feel like I hardly scratched the surface, but I'm looking forward to trying to create a few 12 x 12 pages and maybe make them hybrid.  If I can get my act together, I'm going to try to get that together for our Fall Crop Weekend.

Wish me luck!!!

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Welcome Back...

I can't say I didn't warn you about my hiatus!!  But welcome back to my blog! 

I am so glad to be back!!  It has been one crazy couple of weeks, and although I wouldn't have changed a thing, I am so glad to begin settling back into things - even if it's just for a little while.

The good news is that although I wasn't around and posting anything to my blog, I was able to do a few things here & there for my classes so I actually have a few things I am able to post for you in the next few days & weeks.

But first, to catch you all up...  Going back to the week of July 31, we had a great neighborhood block party.  The weather was awesome, and all the adults had "enough" to drink and all the kids were so happy to be running around on the streets til way past when the sun went down, so a good time was had by all!  The remainder of the weekend had all family stuff, which was also great times!!

Last weekend (FINALLY!) was my high school reunion.  I know I have been talking about this for over a year, and I appreciate everyone's thoughts, wishes, suggestions, and input.  It was a FABULOUS time!  We also had great weather and it was just so good to see everyone who came.  I feel so fortunate to have been so involved in the planning because I feel like I got to spend just a little bit of extra time with many classmates.  And all-in-all, I have decided that we have a really great group of people in our class.  Twenty years melts away a lot of insecurities and barriers, and gives you the chance to see that EVERYONE has the potential to be a good person.  I am fortunate to belong to a class that has ALL good people.

So, then there was this past weekend where I moved right from reunion planner to scrapbooking weekend planner.  It was our Summer Crop Weekend, and I got to spend it at my favorite hotel, the Dolce Basking Ridge!  I love it there.  The staff is so nice & accommodating and the space is great, the food is great, the beds are comfy, etc., etc.  The one bad thing about having back-to-back-to-back events is that I really had NOTHING planned to scrapbook.

I decided to turn this into a positive thing by sitting down & playing with My Digital Studio!!!  My plan was to use all the reunion pictures that were taken and put them into an album.  (My adorable and very willing friend, downline, & fellow KRHS grad from the Class of '92, Heidi volunteered to take photos of everyone all night - is she not the best??)

So, I worked on it all weekend. (Okay, not really ALL weekend, but it was my main focus.)  I got about 13 pages done.  They are not spectacular, and I am not very fast at this yet, but I am determined to finish the book!!!  I found out you can save individual pages as a jpg, so I saved one just to show you all.  It was such a great way to relive the reunion while still scrapbooking and it didn't require a ton of prep or supplies.  Now don't get me wrong; I miss playing with the paper & scissors, but for an event like our reunion, My Digital Studio is perfect!!  I think I might even get a few additional books for my BFFs.

So, here it is.  This pictures on this page are actually from the Family Picnic that we had on Friday night.  The page itself is not very involved, but it's one of the more detailed pages that I have done.  I am about ready to delve into more layering, but I'm going through a learning curve here!  Be patient people!!  :)

So, now I am back, and hope to have more & more things to share with you - just like the olden days.  Okay, not really like the olden days, but more like a few months ago.

'Til tomorrow!!!!

Back to Santa Monica (in my mind anyway)

Let's go back one more time to Santa Monica.  Wanna ride the Ferris wheel with me???

When we were in Santa Monica last November, Jeff's friend Kimberly joined us for brunch and then we hung out on the pier.  Kimberly has all kinds of SM connections and is tons of fun anyway, but she had free tickets for us all to ride the Ferris wheel!!!  So here are some of the pictures and the scrapbook page that came out of it.

My friend Dana inspired me for this layout.  Dana is an amazing scrapbooker and she always makes fun of my not-so-creative titles.  She told me I wasn't allowed to call this page "Santa Monica Ferris Wheel", so she helped me come up with "round & round".  It does sound like more fun her way, huh?

I was talking to Becky earlier today and I asked her if it was too early to start the countdown to my next trip out to see her.  She said no, so in case you were wondering, there are 74 more days til I get to go out & visit again.  She told me it'll be beach weather out there by then!  Oh, boy I can't wait to get out of this miserable gray winter weather here in NJ!!!  Now, we just have to make sure Scott will be around that weekend (he's already been warned) and I have to keep after Mot so he can come & join us for more great mini-reunion memories!!! 

Although, part of this upcoming trip will be "work" related.  Not work in the sense of working, but work in the sense of working on getting our actual 20th Reunion invitations in the mail (so it's kinda fun work).  So far, we have had a really great preliminary response, so we're all hoping for a great turnout and a great time.  I'm still open for any good ideas (or bad ideas to avoid) when planning a 20th High School reunion.  If you have any thoughts, please share them!!!

A New Office (Actually it's a newly cleaned & organized office)

I realize it's been a few days since my last post - I've been busy organizing, cleaning, and working on 20th Reunion stuff.  I thought today, now that it's just about all done, I'd share some photos.

My husband took a few days off earlier this week, and one of the things he did was build me shelves in my office.  As many of you know, I moved my office down into my stamping room/family room/basement about a year and a half ago, and it's been a work in progress ever since.  I'm the kind of person who needs to "live" in a space for awhile and then decide what I can do to improve it.

So, I asked him to build me shelves where I could store my Sizzix dies, Cricut cartridges, and some books.  With just the addition of the shelves, I could do so much more!!  It freed up space on my cutting table, under my cutting table (which was where the dies were previously), and on my desk.

So here are the shelves:

And here are a few other shots of the office side of the basement: 

 

I still have some more to do, but it's SO much better now!!  Of course, the challenge for me will be to keep it this way.  I'm really going to try!!!

And on another note, I have been working on setting up a blog for my 20th Reunion, and it's been lots of fun putting that together.  If you are curious, you can check it out at http://krhsclassof90.com.

So between those two things and getting ready for back to school, I've been a little busy!!  Once school starts (which is Thursday for my 2nd grader and next Tuesday for my preschooler), I'll be back to some more regular blogging.

However, my September Newsletter will be out next week, so be sure to sign up for my mailing list to receive all that great information!!!

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Blast from the Past: Planning a High School Reunion

For the past few months, I've been reconnecting with lots of old friends through Facebook.  I have become a total Facebook addict, but I've had so much fun finding old friends!!  It's so interesting to see where people have gone, what they look like now, what their families look like, etc.

And the timing couldn't be better.  We are in the process of planning our 20th High School Reunion (Class of 90!!), so Facebook has really come in handy!!  It's still a year away, but we have our place picked out, the date picked, and the plans are underway!!

So because of all this getting back in touch, I've gone through my parents' house looking for old pictures from high school (and even grammar school).  Since I still have a year 'til the reunion, I'm thinking I might scrapbook some of these.

I thought I'd share some of these potentially embarrassing moments with you!!!  (I'm going to spare the grammar school pictures for all the innocent people involved!!  LOL!)

Graduation - June 20 (or 21), 1990

Senior Prom - June 1990 (this is my friend Chris, as opposed to my date whose name is also Chris)
Senior Prom - June 1990

Our class has never had a reunion, so if you have any tips or suggestions, please let me know!!!  We're hoping for a fun weekend of activities for graduates, spouses, and families!!