My son graduated last year. Like the above poster, I did it the weekend after graduation. I used disposable plates, napkins, cups in the school colors and balloons to decorate. We had a crowd; well over 100 people. I did the picture collages and a video that played on a laptop going through his birth to graduation pictures and videos all set to music. It was wonderful. I also had some of his school work and artwork from the elementary grades, some of it was so funny! Lots of sports memorobilia too as he is an athlete. I made a lot of food! My son's requests were his favorite chicken pasta salad and a chocolate fountain; both were big hits. Since it was his party I wanted to include him in the menu too. We did not serve any alcohol but we did order a Root Beer keg from the liquor store. We put some prefilled cups with ice cream in a cooler so people could make floats but I think most just drank the Root Beer. We went through a 16 gallon keg in a little over 3 hours. It was outside on the deck because it gets sticky. Guest really loved it and I got a lot of good comments. I set up a volleyball net in the back yard. After the official hours of the party, the teenage guests stayed and played some very competitive volleyball for a couple hours and I served them leftover sandwiches, salads, fruit and punch. I suggest you designate someone with your camera to get pictures of your DD with guests, grandparents, aunts, uncles, special friends, etc... you'll be much too busy and you'll appreciate having the pictures later. Have fun and find someone to help you so you can take some time out of hostessing to enjoy your guests. Maryp

I have been on decorating forum since I moved into new house 2yrs ago, after I finished decorating the first house we found new house, new house was blank slate. Been on pools since last year, decided to do pool in blank backyard. I do hit other sites when problems arise. Like my dryer, plants to plant, car, buying homes, money saving ideas, and now scrapping. I just celebrated my 17th anniversary and 20yrs together. Kids are dd= 9, ds= 5.5. I just went back to work after 5yrs off to be with kids. I am in the insurance industry and called my last coworker and she hired me. Great company, 7mi commute, family oriented, flexible schedule so I can take my kids to school every day. I remember going to a big craft show in early 90s and saw this scrapbook company and thought they had waaaaaay too much time on their hands. That was CM! Met my CM friend through the MOMS club in 2000, but I had started scrapping when dd was born in 97. I do 8x11 for kids books but 12x12 for all the others. I have done doggy books for my bro and myself, and cat one too. They each took less than a day to do. Wish I could do a business in pet books. I really love making something special like that. Creepiest thing about scrapping, kind of sad too. Back in 99 I lived in Atlanta. I was working on my sister's page doing the pics of her and her husband. When I was literally holding the pics the phone rang, her husband had died. I remember talking on the phone while looking at the pics. Very coincidental, I know, but just really odd. I currently have my kids books, Kiki cat's, doggy's, my family and friends, dh's family and friends, dh's life before me/my life before dh (It is a 12x12 with white pages, there is a black divider page so you know where his part starts). I will be making a vacations book at a crop event on 4/29. It will have all the trips we took before kids came into our marriage. Then I will make a book of our life together, minus the kid stuff. That will be a small book-lol! Actually, there are things we have done that did not involve the kids- hard to believe we actually have done things without them! I will make a book of my dh's kayak trips. Now that I am settled in to working again, I can fit scrapping back into my schedule. Janna knows how the pool build can be all consuming. The reason I have over 1000 pics to develop is because all my time was spent on the pool. Now I can get refocused. My biggest dream is to have my mom get her pics organized. She has two shoeboxes of black and white pics from her youth. She is 73. I have talked to her about writing on the backs because she is the only one who knows. I have offered to scan all pics to disc to give to others. I would then put the pics into an album for her. My siblings could do what they want with their CD of pics. I could even make duplicate albums if they paid me to do it. Of course the deal would be that I get mom's actual album some day. My mom has been a real frustration for me lately. Maybe this would be a way to bring us closer. I need to keep my cost down, $40 is too much for an album and one can only have so many parties to earn free stuff from CM. I was a consultant for a few months, just not enough time to generate the clientel. So I think I may have to use the 40% coupons at Michaels or JoAnns to get my books. My CM friend is fine about stuff like that. I still will buy other things from her. I have got my dh better at taking pics. I have explained how to think about pics instead of just taking them. He has gotten really good at it. Enough about me. This is why I have no time to scrap.

I started back in 97 when my dd was born- today she turns 9! I did her baby book and it was ok. Then I discovered Creative Memories and all the stuff out there. I redid her pages- thanks to double prints- and it is much nicer. I used to use a 3-ring binder and page protectors from office supply store. I used solid paper as my page. I used some stickers and a little journalling. I have since taken all those pages and put them into CM albums. Now I use the regular white pages and use the colored paper for frames or accent strips. To organize and make things go faster I use an easy method. I have a binder with sleeves in it. When I develop film I separate in dated or event order. Then I divide by what pics would fit on a page. I drop those pics into sleeves. Then I take paper that matches the pics and drop it in the sleeve. I may put some stickers in there too. Then when I go to scrap, I just grab a sleeve and work that page. I have already picked out the stuff for the page, just need to assemble. Unfortunatly, I have a digital camera now. It was so easy to develop film and then sort out the pics. Now I have to download onto a CD, take to a place or use an online service. I have not done this yet, which explains why I have over 600 pics to print, and at least half I need doubles of- one for my dd and one for my ds albums. One nice thing about digital is that I can print only what I need, so I may print all my dd birthday pics for her album, but only print a few for my son to have in his. Hey soggy6- aren't you the one with the pool that had plaster then switched to ptec after a crack or something? Are you going to, or do you know about, the event at Newburg Hall down by Sac State on 4/29? My CM gal and her friends are having an all-day event. After spending last year doing the build, it will be nice to spend a day scrapping. I am taking all our vacation pics- the ones before we had kids- and getting them all into albums. Won't be super fancy like my kids books. The goal is to have them in an album instead of not.

When I had my daughter a few months ago I made all the baby shower invitations. To keep my costs down I bought a package of solid colored pastel paper, and a few stamps. Between the baby feet & hand stamps, and the "it's a girl" stamps I was able to create 50 different cards. I have quite numerous bright colored paper but would love to experiment more with the natural colors such at greens and brown like you do. Also in terms of scrap booking. I made my mother, mother-in-law, and my grandma a baby brag book. I used a 6x6 album and it was so easy to do. I cropped most of the pictures down and just did a simple border trim on each page with a small amount of journaling. Each book with 20 pages took about 2 hours to make. My brother just found out that he is getting deployed to Afghanistan in January, and since finding out is getting married in the next few weeks before he leaves for training. I'm working on a 8x8 book for him to take overseas with him. Does anyone have any good ideas for military or wedding themed pages? Stephanie in South Dakota