The End of Summer

Summer is nearing an end. Most of Emmelia's friends started kindergarten this week, but she is doing pretty well with the transition. Next Monday her friends from Preschool will get moved up into the pre-K room with her. For now, it's just her and three friends who were in pre-K but aren't going to Kindy this year, so they are getting lots of extra attention from their teacher.

Last night was our last swimming lesson of the year. Emmelia did TERRIFIC! She has really gotten more confident in the water this summer and will put her face under without too much complaining. The teacher said we can advance her to the next swimming level - Eel at the YMCA. This is really good news for me because I was a little worried she and Maura would be in the same swim class next summer. The Pike and Eel classes meet at the same time, so it will still be convenient. It's hard to believe that next summer will be the first summer since 2002 that I won't be in a parent-child swim class - both girls will be in the water while I sit and wait for them. I guess I should learn to knit or something.

Lately I have been so... I don't know, disappointed, I guess by the digiscrap world. It just seems to me that there is more and more of a disparity between those who design and those who don't. The designers, I guess logically, set the standard for what is "in" and what isn't anymore in digiscrapping. And it really seems a little hard to keep up with what is "in" because everyone is trying so darn hard to come up with something NEW that will sell!

I enjoy scrapping for me, but I have to admit I also really like comments and feedback. I would really like it more in the galleries if people would give honest feedback to layouts - say "looks really nice, but might be more balanced if such-and-such element were over on the other side" - something like that. But no one knows each other and are afraid to comment at ALL or when they do, it's just "Great job, thanks for sharing". Which, you know, it's nice to get ANY comment these days, but still.....

And lately I've also been noticing something that always annoyed me about paper scrapping - people making layouts with kits and quotes that have NOTHING to do with the photos they are using. I hate that. But I realize that's a total pet peeve of mine and everyone is free to do scrapping however they'd like. But I do wonder if some of it is because people are on creative teams and are sort of forced to make a certain designer's kits work with whatever photos they have.

I would like to apply for CTs and make layouts that maybe will get noticed or appreciated, but at the same time I'm not sure I really want to buy into the politics of the digiscrap world or find myself in the same boat of having to "force" layouts just to meet the requirements of the creative team. I like having freedom in my creativity. I realize part of my problem is I just like to look at layouts in galleries and get ideas and I don't hang out on a bunch of forums, which is probably where people would get to know me, but I just don't have a lot of extra time for that.

Anyway, after I vented those last few paragraphs on my digiscrap board where my friends seem to understand, I was able to get over the scrapping block I've had the past few days and come up with these two layouts using kits from my friends Christine Nash (Nanny's Kitchen) and Tamara Lee Miller (Fly Away Butterfly). I even branched out a little bit - using blending modes and trying the current "in" thing of making a cluster of charms on a simple layout.