Hi there.

We’ve been burning lots of midnight oil getting ready for this week’s launch of PROJECT LIFE. In the meantime, a quick bit of reading material for your day. First, a simple baby announcement idea and then a little more Q&A.

This is sweet Cameron.

I love the non-traditional shot of Cameron in my friend Kari’s arms. This emulates how loved this sweet babe is. Adding text in Photoshop took me all of about 5 minutes or so and the baby announcement was ready to print.

Added note: The 2 fonts (and likely the 2 most commonly used fonts on my computer) are Rockwell (“cameron thayne”) and Gill Sans Light (everything else).

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For those just joining the party, I invite my blog readers to ask questions from time to time … and I answer a handful at a time. Here is the next batch.

Q: Everyone wants to know about the necklaces for their daughters…I want one for me.

A: They’re the cutest, huh? And it can be such a fun addiction to sit and bead and bead and bead. So relaxing. Anyway, I believe my friends got a lot of beads at usbeadery.com and craft stores (Michael’s, JoAnn) and who knows what other random places. There really are a ton of online resources for all kinds of beads.

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Q: I was just wondering if you could PLEASE re post the meal planner PDF?

A: You bet. Here is the Word doc (in case you want to edit for yourself) and the PDF.

ShoppingList.doc

ShoppingList.pdf

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Q: What’s your favorite adhesive?

A: For all-purpose paper-based stuff (like scrapbooking, card-making, etc.), I like the Duck brand Permanent Easy-Stick adgesive rollers.

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Q: Did you take a photography class to learn to take such great photos?

A: Yep, a couple years in Photography in High School. And I got a D one semester. True story. The only D I ever got in school.

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Q: Cookies are always on my mind…do you have an all time favorite recipe?

A: So hard to choose THE favorite, but I’m going to have to say Andes Mint cookies. I posted that recipe here.

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Q: Do you let the kids watch DVD’s in the car?

A: Only if the drive is “longer”. Not around the neighborhood or running quick errands. I like talking to my kids. I also appreciate “quiet time” to think or make a phone call. So yes, the DVD player totally comes in handy for entertainment. Let’s be real.

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Q: What is the first scrapbook project you would recommend for someone who has never scrapped before?

A: I seriously love that someone has asked this question because I seriously feel so strongly that PROJECT LIFE is the perfect first-attempt-at-scrapbooking type of project. You don’t have to “scrapbook” (cutting & pasting & figuring out what goes where). You don’t have to spend time choosing papers and embellishments. And yet you get the most awesome end result. And album with a far more complete & interesting look at your life than what most of us get with the traditional layouts we’ve been doing.

I’m a believer.