Amazing China

First of all, have you seen the new National Geographic?? It's a special issue about China (click on the magazine title above to link to their site). I bought two print copies at Borders this afternoon - one to read and one to save for Nora.

I haven't read the whole magazine yet, but I've read enough to be inspired to do the "About China" page for Nora's lifebook as this week's digi-scrapping homework (topic was recoloring an element - I recolored the filmstrip and the dragon sticker)

Paper - Confucius Says by Heather Roselli for Sweet Shoppe Designs

Photostrip Element - Adapted from Amy Teets Birthday Mini Elements

Dragon Element - Adapted from Maria LaFrance Journeys of the Heart

Fonts - 1001 Free Fonts Chinese Takeaway and Font Garden Astrid

First lifebook page??

I'm really enjoying my digital scrapbooking class! We did three layouts this week - one using drop shadows, one using a layer template and one using the text mask and eraser tools. After doing the first couple of layouts, I realized that I should be taking this opportunity to work on some projects that I need to accomplish anyway, so my text mask assignment was an attempt at a page for Nora's lifebook. I'm not sure I'm happy with the text color that I used in the journaling, so I might go back and do a little tweaking later. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it.

Credits: Kay Miller Designs (paper), Kristi Mahrt/ Little Lotus Creations (ribbon, adapted) and Tammy Conlan (scalloped frame) for Journey of the Heart

If you can't read the text, it says:

There is a tradition in parts of China where, to welcome a new baby, each family in the village contributes a piece of cloth, along with their good wishes for the baby. The scraps of cloth are then sewn into a quilt which contains the luck, energy and good wishes of all the people who gave a piece of fabric.

While we were waiting to bring you home from China, we decided to collect fabric squares and good wishes from all the friends and family who love you and who were waiting for you to come home. Then mommy learned to sew and made them into a quilt for you. We call this your one hundred good wishes quilt.

I really highly recommend the godigitalscrapbooking classes - it is a very encouraging group!

Digi-scrapping - learning a new skill

I've started taking a digital scrapbooking (Photoshop Elements) class online at Go Digital Scrapbooking. This is the end of the second week and I think it's going pretty well - I've learned way more about PSE in the past two weeks than I'd picked up in a year of trying to learn on my own with a book.

This is my assignment for this week - the assignment was using selection tools and layers. We were also supposed to create photo borders. The header wouldn't have been my choice, but it is somewhat in keeping with the assignment. I do like the way the bottom portion of the layout with Maddie's boots drying by the fire came out, though. Maybe I'll rework it a little later.

Really, I'm trying to prepare for making Nora's referral announcements, baby book, lifebook and our travel journal. I tried paper scrapbooking a while back and it didn't go very well. Digi-scrapping seems to be much more my thing (and I don't get glue all over the place). Hopefully by the time Nora comes along I'll have gotten the hang of it.

Update 10:29pm - after some more playing, I have what I think is an improved title. What do you think?

Credits: Digital papers from Emma's Smile by Danielle Young

Mega Mail Monday

Continuing the tradition of great mail on Mondays, today I received the best box of scrapbook supplies from Jennifer B as part of the January DTC scrapbook swap. Look at all this great stuff!!

"Welcome to Asia" papers, Asian mini tags, fortune cookie rub ons, Chinese character and letter rub ons, Chinese stickers

First five year stickers (year 2 was on top, but there are five pages, one for each year), adoption stickers, Mom embellishments, 3-D baby stickers

Summer fun stickers (4 pages) and a whole box of eyelets, brads and fancy paperclips.

Thank you so much Jennifer, you have outdone yourself!

Gifts from China

Rob just returned from a business trip to Shanghai. I sent a whole shopping list and he came back with, well, some of it. To his credit, though, he did get the important stuff - a Chinese zodiac papercut for Nora's lifebook and some children's cds. Our Chinese isn't good enough to make any sense of the cds, but we did ask Nicole, our Chinese instructor, about them. She said that one is famous Chinese poems (that's the one with the man in the robe) and the other one is children's songs about Beijing. The interesting thing is that none of the children in the cartoons appear to be Asian, maybe they are visiting Beijing?

Lifebook and Baby Book

I ordered these gorgeous silk albums from Chinese Adoption Document Organizers and More (www.cadoam.com). The red one is a 12x12 scrapbook-style album that I plan to use for Nora's lifebook and the pink one is her baby book. It came with pages customized for China adoptions (shown inset). The pages are fill-in-the-blank style, like your typical baby book, but include all the information that is unique to adoption, such as agency information, social worker name, etc.