I Heart Scrapbooking

This is for all those scrappers out there ;P Shout out to my sister Susan... I just recently made a mini album of our pre-Peace Corps road trip and liked the way it turned out given the limited supplies I had packed. I saw an ad in one of the old copies of Simple Scrapbooks that I packed with me (from 2oo7!) and used that idea. Unfortunately it is really thick because I couldn't choose just ONE picture from each stop we made- how could I choose between all the photos!


I made it with cream textured cardstock that I found in a paper store here in Loja (I was sooo excited to find out that they sold it here, even though it is one gigantic posterboard sheet and took a lot of crooked cuts to get the pages square), a small sheet of patterned paper I brought with me (I love the brand Crate Paper, gorgeous!), and some other colored sheets of textured cardstock that I brought from back home, as well as some ribbon that Susan sent me and travel stickers from KI memories.

Look at that beautiful texture on the paper! Yay for this new paper find! I bought hot pink, dark brown, and bright green sheets too (a little over $1 per sheet...kind of spendy in Ecuadorian standards, but imagine the cards I will be able to make!! Check your mailbox for a cute card coming your way! Lol.

I think that we might use the pages to decorate one of our blank white walls in our house around a map of the U.S. That way when we have non-Americans come visit, we can show them some of the beautiful places that exist in the US (Grand Canyon, Smoky Mountains, the Upper Peninsula...you know!). Perhaps it would be a great way to meet Peace Corps Goal 2- Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. Many folks here think that the US is very small (like Elar, who often used to ask if we knew Newark or that one restaurant in Newark), or their perceptions of the US are from movies and t.v. shows (like The Hills, My Super Sweet 16, or action flicks like Rocky).

Since I do have some spare time on weekends and in the evening (before I was reading Harry Potter in Spanish), I have also been trying to learn about digital scrapbooking but am not so good at it...lots of Photoshop techniques to learn. Here are a few pages that I recently made using some free kits from 2Peas (Rhonna Farrer and Vinnie Pierce template). I still like using real tangible products better, but hey, I am in Ecuador in the Peace Corps so the fact that I am even able to continue this hobby is saying something!!

(one of the towns from training that we finally visited on our last week of training)

P.S. Today we are on the upswing! =D Walked around Loja, enjoyed the good weather, said hello to our Ecua-acquaintances at Zona CD, talked with Jennifer on Skype, and cooked up some fajitas for dinner with made from scratch tortillas. Delicious! Oh, and I think I am going to start putting up some recipes since I am starting to learn to make a lot of things, especially from scratch. =D