Good to be back!

For the last year or so I've done more cardmaking than scrapbooking, which was my first papercrafting love. Over Mother's Day weekend, I went to a scrapbooking retreat to jump-start the pastime left stalled for too long.  Before going, I put together some loose page kits, which really helped me keep moving along at the retreat. I didn't plan any layouts or do any cutting for these kits, I just separated my pictures into groups for two-page layouts and chose two or three sheets of coordinated patterned papers, a couple sheets of solid cardstock, and some embellishments to go with them. I slipped each "kit" into a two quart Ziplock bag and packed them up. I like to have options, so I went a little overboard in creating kits so I would have plenty of choices. I brought enough to finish an album that I started a year and a half ago, and then added enough to do a complete album for a beach trip we took for my 50th birthday in 2013 and my husband's recent golf trip to Arizona - 68 page kits in all.  After a weekend of scrapping, resting, and enjoying the beautiful riverfront location, I left with 26 completed pages. My goal was to at least finish the half-done album, which I did. It was a wedding album for my niece. I gave the first half of it to the happy couple for Christmas the year they were married, and it included most of the professional wedding photos. I told them I would give them the second half - mostly using family snapshots - on their first anniversary.  Totally missed that, but now it's all wrapped up and ready for their second anniversary in August (there are some blank journaling cards for my niece to add her thoughts).  I also got a good start on my husband's golf trip. I've done two more pages for that since the retreat, and have a few more to go. I also need to add some titles and info about the courses they played - no journaling for that book since I wasn't on the trip and I know my husband well enough to know he'll be happy with just the pictures (especially if it means he doesn't have to write anything). Since I already made page kits for our beach trip, I plan to start that book this weekend.

Here are the pages I completed at the retreat (plus an extra two golf pages). I'm pretty happy with them, especially since they were my first pages in a very long time.