Digital Scrapbooking

Another of my hobbies that I enjoy is digital scrapbooking. I have a huge number of pictures that I need to do something better with than store them in tubs where they are not ageing very gracefully!

The software I use is Paint Shop Pro and it's been rather hard to learn. Many parts of it are so difficult for me to understand that I haven't even touched them. But I've limped along for a few years and occasionally manage to spit out a page I think is not so bad.

For the past two weeks or so I have been doing some intense sorting of thousands of the little graphics which go into this hobby. I have found myself spending more time (and money) on these than actually using them. After looking at them lately and thinking how marvelous are these little pieces of artwork that have been created by others, that I decided to actually put together a page!

This is for Naomi when she was about 18 months old. I decided it needed two pages to do the "story" justice. The journaling is below the picture in case it's hard to read on your computer.

"After falling a few times, you decided that playing in the snow was not very much fun!"

" Always your hero, your big brother Jeff steps in to take your hand and guide you to safer ground"

Naomi's little "thought bubble" says: I love my brother. He's always been a sucker for a pretty face!

Music!!

I just read Alikat's blog about music! I decided to put here on my blog what I linked to on hers. This is R. Carlos Nakai, a Native American flute player. This is one of my favorite kinds of music. This one is also accompanied by wonderful pictures of the Grand Canyon. One of my favorite places on Earth! Enjoy, Everyone!

Miniature Books

Do you collect books?? I have for years, I really love books. Whether or not I have any money, I feel totally rich when I have a new book, or a stack of them, from the library or the book store.

I don't limit myself to size when it comes to owning them. I have a small collection of miniature books which friends and family have contributed to for several years. I thought I'd share some of them with all of you! If you are one of the contributors, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and indulgence!! You know who you are!!

To give you an idea of their sizes, this one represents the smallest ones. ( I thought hummingbirds were an appropriate choice for this!)

There are several themes, these are for Christmas:

One of them is a pop-up book:

This one turns from a book into an ornament you can hang on the tree:
Untied and opened halfway:

And now, fully opened with it's front and back covers tied together:

There are children's stories like this little one with a clear plastic center that you can see through as this little boy and his Teddy bear experience laundry day and getting dressed in clean clothes:
.....and a little peek inside:

Here are a few of the Little Golden Books like the ones that I read as a child. Mindy's favorite was The Little Red Hen:

There are books on Wisdom and Spirituality:

And some on Life Skills:

Here's an excerpt from Success:

These little books are informative and have adorable little bookmarks that go along with the subject!

These are for Moms and Grandmoms.

The middle one I got from one of my children as a gift with a lot of meaningful personalized notes and underlines inside. Such as these pages:

And look! Even a little Chocolate Cookbook, every chocoholic needs a mini-fix from time to time! This is also the largest mini-book in the collection:

Now you may wonder where I keep this delightful little collection? Well, years ago I found a tiny display shelf that was for sale at a little shop that was going out of business, it was just the perfect thing! And where do I keep this little bookshelf? Well, here of course!

Why the bathroom? Because most people enjoy reading in there. And why these books as opposed to their larger counterparts?? To encourage Short Stays!!