Confession.

Hi. I have a confession to make.

I used to think that
- all of my pages had to be done the same size
- they all needed to be either one page layouts or two pagers
- all had to be 12x12 or all 8.5x11
- I thought they needed to share the same style
- have chronological connection withing the album
- and even somehow match color wise...
Not funny, but that's what was holding me back.

Now, I love the freedom of choice and options. I pick a story to tell, decide on paper size and go with whatever feels right at the moment. Ali Edwards played a big part in this changed thinking for me. I love to work on 12x12 canvas, but when I found these adorable 8.5x11 scrapbooks at Kohl's (3 ring binders), this is my new favorite.

Here is a simple layout I made about my mom. I love those old pictures. I don't have too many and that's why they are so valuable to me. I like to turn photos to black and white, especially when originals don't match with each other and to do so here I used Picasa. So easy to use. Actually I love my Picasa more every day. Also used it to fix some cracks on these pictures.

I love simple but I don't remember the last time I could do a page so quickly. Here, I used just a few pictures from Borders. Yes, I learned that I don't have to scrapbook all of them. Just picked the ones I thought will help me tell the story and kept the rest on DVD.

Originally I had a little different design in my mind, but as a part of my scrapbooking process I like to play and rearrange items on the page just before gluing everything down to see other options, and decided to go with this one. Didn't want to put "Borders" for the title, since the big Borders letters are on the photo. Thought that a letter "B" will be just enough.

I do have a couple more pages that still need a journaling for or a title. I will share them later. And here is a sneak peek of what I'm working on right now, almost finished.

Will be back soon.