A 2004 Creative Keepsakes Hall of Fame member, Rhonna Farrer is a Garden Girl who designs digital kits for www.twopeasinabucket.com and enjoyed being a member of the 2007 BHG Scrapbooks Etc. Creative Team. She continues to create various products for Autumn Leaves and has been published in the Designing With line of books, Home Companion, Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbooks Etc. & others. Check out her site www.rhonnadesigns.com where she shares ideas, links, inspiration, challenges & enjoys connecting with artists from all over the world.

In this article, Rhonna talks about her newest Gallery photo book, “Vacation Memories”, and shares tips on how to create your own. If you’re new to digital scrapbooking, take a look at our introductory digital scrapbook article to get you started.

Shutterfly and CK Media have recently released two new scrapbook styled photo books that can support your summer storytelling.

Kerri Bradford designed “Play Hard”, a book to tell the story of a sports season of one player or for the entire team. It can also be used to tell the story of multiple seasons at once as the page headlines and color palette are versatile enough to support a season played on the grass or in the gym or even in the pool. There are a bunch of examples in Gallery that illustrate the book’s versatility.

There’s something about the slowness of summertime that is giving people the time to tell some stories in photo books that cover many years.

SharonC15’s “The Story of You…” is the first I saw. It’s a gift to her 18 year old daughter as she heads off to college. BeckyS549’s “

A few months ago I began commuting by train, because: a) gas prices were laughable. b) I was tired of sitting in a car. Now, 5 months later, I’m a train addict. Maybe it’s because I have more time to read on the train, or because I find looking out the train window a little adventurous, a little romantic, or maybe I just like the people watching opportunities. Whatever the reason, I love my trains.

And this has gotten me thinking about trains and summer vacations.

I always start with good intentions, promising myself I will journal every day during my travels; but I never get past day one. This Spring in Mexico however, I kept my journaling promise, by making each entry really short! Every night I jotted down a couple of lines about the day’s activities, and a couple of thoughts about the day. That’s it. 5 minutes or less.

We would like to introduce you to Sunni Refuse, a key member of our Shutterfly Scrapbooking Advisory Team. Together with her husband, Sunni is the founder of Scrapbook-Elements.com which opened April, 2004. She began creating digital scrapbook layouts in 1998 and has developed her skills over the years.

In this insightful article, Sunni tells us how she discovered the art (and fun!) of storytelling from Minnie’s point of view. Who’s Minnie? Their Yorkshire Terrier!