Scrapbook Starting Point

With the holidays approaching, creative juices and the need to craft start flowing!  I am currently working on an Advent Calendar for my kiddos and plan to do a December Daily album.  I'm going to do a combination of Ali Edwards style album with Journal Your Christmas prompts from Shimelle.  I've gathered my papers - Simple Stories 25 Days of Christmas and some cutting files from Kerrie Bradford. In the meantime, while I'm gathering my supplies and deciding on what album to use, I was inspired to do a scrapbook page using the Scrapbook Starting Point post from Shimelle.  Here is the starting point:

 And here is how my page turned out.

Thanks, Shimelle, for the inspiration!  Looking forward to my first Journal Your Christmas!

Some pages for the book

Back in August, I headed up to Charlotte, NC for a Creating Keepsakes scrapbook convention.  I went ALL ALONE, and it was wonderful.  I stayed in the Westin hotel right next door to the convention center.  The hotel was lavish, the food was fabulous and the time alone was so.very. needed.  I took classes all day, shopped in the vendor faire, and attended a crop in the evenings.  I met some really sweet ladies,  but it was so nice to go alone.

Each of the classes were loaded up with information and product, so I came home with almost 25 complete layouts and supplies to last forever!  I was introduced to some great new scrapbook companies, and some new techniques.  I can't wait to attend next year.  Maybe they will schedule one in Atlanta! Attending this event inspired me to get back to work preserving our family memories. It also reminded me just how much I love to get crafty and creative.  Here are some of my completed layouts from the convention and over past couple of months.  Be warned...I am not very good at photographing scrapbook pages. 

This page was inspired by a PageMaps sketch.  The patterned paper is from Creative Memories.

This is one of my FAVORITE pages from the convention.  The design is by Technique Tuesday using Ali Edwards stamps.  The title is Life if Beautiful with You.

A mix of papers and embellishments from my stash.

I just had to throw in a card.  :)

 Thanks for looking!
Rachael