A Christmas Gift revealed

My Gramma Birney was an extraordinary woman with many talents. She was meticulous about many things - quilting, knitting, sewing, stamp collecting, photography, and even scrapbooking. She was ahead of her time. And she created a book for my father's 40th birthday that has become quite a keepsake in our family (I understand that she had the organization intact for the books for her younger two children, but passed before those books were completed). Now that none of us lives near our dad in Michigan, I long for the ability to peruse even some of those photos.

So I asked my dad for a favor. The following Studio J layouts are the result of my dad's agreeing to the favor (loaning me this precious book for an undetermined amount of time so that I could scan photos from it) and then my reconceiving my Gramma's work in a slightly modern (and more cost-effective) way.

I'm pretty sure the recipients don't check my blog. If you do, I apologize in advance for spoiling your Christmas present! I assure you, it will be a different experience to have the item in hand. At least, I hope it will! I'm just so excited about the end results that I want to share right away!

I have more layouts to make, but there were some issues with scanning certain photos (like wedding pictures). One of the great things about a CTMH album is that the page protectors are top loading, so you can rearrange the order of the layouts and pages as needed.

Some of the benefits I'm reaping as a Studio J Member are: half-priced layouts (instead of $12.95 for each layout/double-page spread, I pay $6.50), free shipping once a month on an order of at least 4 layouts (this incentive alone keeps me "up-to-date" on projects; I love saving some money!), free JPG files (large for reprints and web-ready like the images above - these are still large enough to print a smaller size; remember my new home announcement? That was printed from the web-ready images), the option to buy only the JPG files ($3 if no 12"x12" prints are desired), free Memory Protectors for the same number of layouts I purchase, and archived copies of my layouts so that I can order more if need be. This last item was particularly helpful in my most recent order. I wanted to spend some money in November and some in December. I ordered one copy in November and will place the order for another copy of the same project in December! Of course, if someone else I know says, "Oh, JuliAnne! What I wouldn't give for a copy of that terrific layout of Indian River," I can even reprint that!

If you haven't yet given Studio J a whirl, try it out! Go to my website (www.ctmh.com/JuliAnne) and click on the Studio J link. You only need an email address and to create a password, and then you can play away. It costs nothing for you to experiment! (There are some time restrictions for saving the projects, so if you don't make a purchase your experiment will go away eventually.) Nothing to download. Hey, you can even log in to give yourself some ideas for layouts in Classic Scrapbooking. I like to do that sometimes too - log in for the ideas as well as engage in Classic Scrapbooking. :)