just for fun: studio j

For many years now I have taken a scrapbooking class from my friend Nicole who works for a company called Close to My Heart.  It’s my one night of sanity each month, and I always look forward to it – not just for the paper crafting, which is fun – but for the conversation and the laughter.  I happily count many of these women, whom I would never have met otherwise, as my friends.

Seeing as how I have been attending now for probably 5 years, you would think that I have stacks and stacks of scrapbook albums brimming over with pictures, wouldn’t you? Knowing the amount of time I’ve spent creating the dang things, it’s a good assumption, but a wrong one!

I have one scrapbook album, and it has maybe 7 or 8 beautiful layouts with pictures.  The stacks and stacks of layouts are safely packed away in boxes, languishing sadly, day after day sans pictures, because that’s apparently how I roll.

“This year for my summer project I swear I am going to print out pictures and get them on those pages!”

I tell myself this Every.Single.Summer. And every summer goes by without having begun to even make a dent.

When left to my own devices I have a tendency to get bogged down in wanting to get a layout just right, whatever that means. I start out with my stacks of beautiful paper in hand, but then I’m so afraid I’m going to screw something up, or that it could be so much better if I try it this way… no wait, what about that way!… oops, now I’ve cut my paper the wrong size and it’s just not going to be the same…

Eventually, I sit frozenly surrounded by scraps of paper and a layout reminiscent of kindergarten, only missing the dried-up gobs of Elmer’s glue. Why would anyone want to put THAT in an album to showcase their precious photos?

Enter Studio J, a digital scrapbooking program through the CTMH company!  The best thing about it is that the program takes the guesswork out of it for me. It gives me the choice of paper packets (nicely coordinating) and then from there I can pick the layout I want. Next I download the pictures, drag and drop them in – and voila! – I have a layout!  With pictures!  What a concept… 😉

Here are two that I just completed:

And pictures of the new grandson! (As a side note, I CANNOT wait to get my hands on this kid! This grand-parenting from 1,500 miles away is for the birds… 😦   )

*p.s. This was in no way a sponsored post, I just am feeling such love for Studio J and the fact that I now actually have a way to get pictures on a page! Plus I can’t wait for the mailman to bring them, and I hate mailmen. All they ever do is bring bills…

**p.p.s. No piles of paper were slaughtered in the making of this post… 🙂