200 Great Scrapbook Layout Ideas by Creative Concepts...I have 2 books, they are spiral bound (easy to fold and work from); each page is just sample sb pages (the 2nd book I got is good because it lists the supplies used for each page); it's layout is by category so it's easy to find ideas.....no words or articles, just many, many good ideas!!

You might find out what her interests are, hobbies, culture etc. Is she interested in nature, decorating, traveling? Start listing some of these and you will get more than enough ideas to fill a page. Also look at the Memory scrapbooking magazine. That one has a ton of good ideas.

I found some really great "calligraphy" pens at Michaels. I can't remember the name or brand, but they have a pen tip at either end...for a smaller and larger calligraphy look. You have to practice some to learn how to hold the pen but I really love the look much much better than my plain hand-writing (which I HATE when I journal). They provide a more personal touch (look) to the page then printing calligraphy style on the computer (which is also a nice idea). Like Jill, I usually like to matt what I journal, depending on the page. If your cousin just graduated from Med school, could you somehow incorporate something from her "soon to be profession"? Perhaps you could make (scrape) a nice looking professional business card with her name, the date she graduated, her title etc.? I'm not too up on graduating med students so maybe she has to complete her residency, but maybe you could include smaller photos of where she will work or complete her residency on the page (in the background or superimpose photos of her on top of these smaller ones)? For something a bit more comical, maybe you could get a photo(s) of her with friends or family "using" her medical tools from her black bag with a humorous title page or a funny lyric or poem? I love to matt a lot of my photos and I also love to try (try being the key operative word here)and make up poems or rhyme when I journal. I think you could have a lot of fun and still have some very elegant and "fun" pages. Good luck! Send us a link for your completed pages so we can save the ideas...I'll need one in about 14-16 years!

I do this! It started as a xmas gift last year and has just exploded. Mine is in 8x11 format in a 3 ring binder with page protectors (easy to move around). Mine is the master book. I took the finished pages to Kinkos and had copies made and put those in page protectors and binders for my mom and sister. Since I write in my cookbooks ("excellent", "blah!" etc), I was able to go through and pull out the good recipes. I was even able to ditch some cookbooks that I was keeping only for one or two recipes. I really dreaded all the data entry and then realized that all these recipes are on the web! So I do a google search until I find the exact (or very close) recipe and then cut and paste into word, change the color and font and print it out to scrap. I have found that this is a great way to use all the patterned papper I have accumulated from swaps etc. and stickers, die cuts, etc. I am doing some pages with two similar recipes (like 2 rice dishes) because some recipes are pretty small. I am planning of photocopying some of my mom's handwritten recipes but am still going through the ones from books right now. Both my sister and I have to agree that a new recipe is "book worthy" before it goes in the book. And this xmas, when we get together, they will bring their books so we'll know which pages to take to kinkos from my book. I tried to incorporate photos but it was *very* difficult. Perhaps in the future.