Go to the Lowe's and pick up a Sunset Western Gardening book and go to Lowe's garden furniture section and set down and study it for awhile. Or get a Sunset Western Gardening book from the library for awhile. I wouldn't rush out and spend that much as a lot of the book is not relative to Reno. Have you checked water prices? I don't know about Reno but some surrounding suburbs water prices are prohibitive. We've replace lawns with xeroscaping in Carson City and Fernley.

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!

Creating Keepsakes magazine has helped me a lot. They have a lot of layouts and there are a lot of concepts you can adapt to many applications. Gracefulbee.com also has a ton of great ideas. I spent a whole lot of time there before I started my first album and got to the point where I said to myself, "Stop gathering all these ideas and tips- you have too much to choose from as it is! Quit it and get to the actual scrapbooking!" :) I also spent a lot of time- several days, actually- on message boards like this one gathering ideas and info. Don't be afraid to directly email posters and ask for further details and clarification on a specific post, either. We all love to share. If we didn't, we wouldn't have posted in the first place! Besides, we've all been newbies at some point and got help from others and we'd all like to return the favor. Good luck and happy scrappin'! -Sarah Here is a link that might be useful: Graceful Bee

I've been an audible.com listener for many years and have no complaints at all. I prefer to keep my audio books separate from everything else so I listen on my iPod either with my Bose earbuds or through speakers when I'm working in the house. However, I could listen on my iPhone or my Kindle as well.