2 Adventures in Digital Scraping & a word to the not-so-wise

As you've heard I've taken the plunge into digital scrapbooking. In fact, in a post below you can see my very first attempt at a Layout (LO). I was very excited on Friday to attend my monthly scrap night carrying one small laptop bag and show all my friends the many benefits of going digital. It was nice, but weird, not to make two trips into the building! However, the the smooth night took a turn for the worst when my brand new (under 3 weeks) external hard drive gave up the ghost when it got jarred. UGH! Thankfully Sam's Club exchanged it and nearly all my files are safe elsewhere, but I learned a very valuable lesson. You've heard it before, but don't rely on a single storage medium! Thankfully when I set up my new drive I just happened to burn DVD's of all my files before I deleted them from my laptop's hard drive. The only thing I lost was a week's worth of free, downloaded digital scrapbook files (I didn't store duplicates) and a couple hours I spent organizing, but at least I didn't loose anything of real value (pictures of my kids or work files).

So here is the fruit my labor, my first two 2-page spreads. One if from this January and the other is from a year ago. I'm not exactly sure whether to focus on 'catching up' or staying current. Maybe I'll alternate between 2007 & 2008?

{Want a closer look? Click on any picture to enlarge it.}