Scrapbook Party Time. {Michigan Portrait Photographer}

I’m so lucky to have my career in photography!  My interest… my life… and my job mesh wonderfully.  It is often hard to distinguish my art and home life from work life.  I wouldn’t change it for anything.   Before working as a photographer, I liked crafting which led to scrapbooking.  My old designs are a bit embarrassing now that I look back but it was a fun outlet for creativity and I hoped that my kids would someday each have a cool scrapbook of their life (my mom made one for me and I think it is just awesome).  Now, 8 years later I’ve gone from paper to digital papers for my books.  It isn’t the same as chatting with the girls while cutting and taping but it is a whole lot less messy and easy to stop and come back to…. which with 3 kids, is a must!

Anyway, scrapbookers… Shimelle is having an online crop party this weekend from Friday to Sunday. The site says there will be challenges, prizes, and free downloads… plus some tutorials for paper, digital/paper, or pure digital scrapbooking. I frequent a few blogs and I can tell you that they are always full of inspiration and fun. I’m going to check it out…so should you!  The cost is usually pretty minimal.

Oh, how I love how creative some people are!  And I’m so glad that other people have the same affinity toward paper fun that I do!  It isn’t scrapbooking but these paper craft photos are from the Shimelle site–isn’t this neat?!

Book made with Starbucks cup.

Inside of the book

Also, my long awaited album for my son, Elijah, is finally here! His first 2 years of milestones and ordinary life moments all nicely bound in a book. I tried out Blurb books this year because his book was 104 pages! I have some nicer albums–which I love for keepsakes– but spending $1000 on finger painting pictures seemed a bit much… lol. But this Blurb book is great! I went with premium paper and the large 12×12 size.  I’m glad I have the nicer photographic print album options but I plan to use Blurb again for small blog books or vacations… plus my daughter’s milestone book.  The Royal Oak Photography group is going to be publishing a book through them with our last year of Two Faces of Detroit photos.  You can see one of my posts about it on my old blog, here.

I just ran outside and took these pictures of the book to show you… very excited!  Also, these pics were taken with my new lens that arrived Monday!  100 mm 2.8L Macro!  It is an awesome portrait lens and does amazing close-ups for babies and rings!  I’m looking forward to using it this season.  Elijah’s book is done in a minimalistic style–which I’m a fan of negative white space.  But I’m excited for my daughter’s album too because it is more feminine and earthy.  I’ll have to do a sneak peek soon.