I have been a tired puppy lately.  And I have to hand it to anyone that scraps 'for hire', because there is a LOT of investigative work that goes into making each page come alive, when you weren't there to live those moments.  I am thankful that I have an itinerary that Neil put together for the trip.  It helps me with the 'where', and then I can search the internet to back up my assumptions and get some 'travelogue' type journaling onto each page.  (Which reminds me, I need to print out a set of black and white pages for him to take on his next trip, to journal his perspective, so that I can capture it as well.)

But I am about 28 pages into the scrapbook so far, and am really having a delightful time making this Scotland scrapbook for my inlaws / husband. 

Doing digi/hybrid layouts reveals both a linear and freeform style for me.  The ability to resize pictures on the fly is very freeing!  Also, having each file with all those layers that you can hide, undo, redo and just plain mess with, without wrecking your physical page in the process — well I do like it for a project like this for which I'm on a time crunch and editing ability is a must.  Nothing will replace the physical creating of memory art, and I am not going to spend hours making a piece of digital element 'look real', cause I think that is just goofy – but let's face it — I'm a hybrid gal now.  I'm converted.  I want to make backgrounds, put my pictures and journaling on, with a bit of elements to capture date/time/place and then print it out and embellish.  So all you manufacturers out there — will you just co-release your products please in both physical and digital formats?  C'mon it can't be that hard.

I am so impressed by the shots that Neil took.  I think this one just hits me as one of the most breathtaking – so I thought I'd share this picture of Eilean Donan castle:  Click on the picture for a larger view.  It is sooooo worth it.

He captured the lovely reflection of the castle over the water, with the Isle of Skye in the background.  An amazing picture!  It's funny, but scrapbooking has had an impact on Neil's picture quality.  Niiiiice.

And not like this is work, but I did have some play time this weekend, on Saturday afternoon I went to the Heirloom Productions stamp show with Laura.

We had to rush through the last aisle, but this is what I picked up at the show.

Copic Ciao Markers in what the lady at the register in the Gary Burlin booth described as 'cotton candy' colors.  I found a lot of light colored, high clarity, low saturation hues that I know I will use and haven't been able to find in stock either in stores or online.  I favor the Sketch style ones, because they hold more ink and can be used in the airbrush system, but I will take these, and probably buy the refills soon too.  I don't see doing airbrushing in these light colors.  I tend to use the light tones more than the blending pen.  I also bought some medium 'writer' style nibs for colors that I like to do fine detail work with.  I'm not a fan of the chisel tip.

My favorite ink pad of the moment:

Colorbox Fluid Chalk inkpad in Creamy Brown.  When these chalk inks dry, they leave a hazy texture behind.  I have a little 'cats eye' pad and now this full-size one, and the reinker for both.  That's how much I like it!

It is great for using as a 'resist' when airbrushing over heat embossed areas with the Copic markers.  Just buff it off the embossed areas when you are done, and the color is light enough, that wherever it landed on your exposed paper is pleasant to look at too.  I'm rambling, but e-mail me if you want a better description.

I also bought some stencil paste in Copper.  I'm planning a Wednesday playdate this week with Laura to work with this type of material some more.  It's one of those things that you see demonstrated at the show, and if you don't take time to make it part of your reportoire, you won't use it!  I thought it could be very appealing with my Spellbinders dies.

I only bought a few unmounted stamps at the show.  I'll probably put them on EZ Mount today, so that I can get them put away properly in my craft area.  Sorry for the red rubber pics, I haven't stamped with them yet:

On the left, some images I purchased from the Starving Artistamps booth.  Such wacky designs – reminds me a bit of Bam Pop and such.  I thought they'd be fun for boy projects and I can see putting my little guy's face in the window of the rocket ship.

On the top right, a hatpin cushion.  I liked the idea.  I didn't like the art so much, but I figure that I can mess with the cushion itself a bit until I do like it.  Hat pins… I couldn't resist.

A sand castle that really does look like a palatial casle.  and the size is large enough to use on a scrapbook page as well.

And finally, a Tim Holtz(tm) DVD of printable elements.  Since I'm getting more and more into Digi/Hybrid, I was pleased to see it noted on the back that these are all scanned at 300ppi.  I hope they will scale well to whatever I want to do with them.  There was another one at the show, but older (2006) and I felt like, without that designated on the case, they would be very 'clip art' like and not the quality I was looking for.  We'll see!

Well, back to my eye-candy and scrapping.  I am placing the finished pages into the layouts gallery as I go now.  And I should be done with layout out the remaining pages this week so that I can journal them this weekend.

We are having 'excessive heat' over the weekend and so much so, that the school district declared an early dismissal for today.  So I'll probably be keeping cool somewhere this afternoon.  I hope you have a great day!