National Scrapbooking Day

How appropriate - I've just found out that it's National Scrapbooking Day, and where did I spend the day - at a crop!  (For anybody who doesn't know, a crop is an event where scrapbookers gather and scrap (and also chat, stroke stash etc) )

I've just committed myself to join a new CJ (Circle Journal - a "travelling" scrapbook that gets passed from person to person, each person completing a layout, until it gets home again), so I used today to get mine started.  For the first time ever, I made the book from scratch, cutting my own chipboard covers and cardstock pages before embellishing and combining them - not actually as difficult or impressive as it sounds, but it's cheaper and more satisfying than using a bought mini-album.  The final book is just under 6x6 in size, a good size for posting.

This CJ is an "open" CJ, where each participant chooses the theme for their own book.  My theme is "stash" - I'm asking each person to use some of their new stash, or favourite stash, or old stash they thought they'd never use ... basically it's an excuse to have fun and to create a book of ideas and inspiration that I can use when it finally returns to me.  So for my own inital layout, I just had to use some of my gorgeous new Tim Holtz stamps and inks (plus a bit of tissue tape) - I had great fun creating it and am quite pleased with the way it turned out ..