Just got my September 2005 issue of Creating Keepsakes in the mail and one of the articles caught my eye and my mind space. Rachel Thomae writes in her article Scrapbook Your Way about the five starting off points for creating scrapbook pages.

Creating Keepsakes - $ 24.97
From: MagazinesQuick.com

Basically she says that we start a page with one of the five elements in mind and then create from there. Her thought is that no one way is “right” or “wrong” but that we each have a natural tendency. The five starting off points she mentions are:

Photographs
Supplies
Design
Art
Words

Obviously the article goes into some great detail about how you can tell which is your natural style and gives some suggestions for getting started with each one. She evens passes out Permission Slips for going outside your usual style.

It is a great article and I highly advise grabbing your CK (Sept 2005 issue, page 113) and see what Rachel has to say.

As for me, I know my natural style is not to start with Supplies since I just went to ScrapYourTrip.com to see if could get some stuff for our upcoming Alaska cruise. But when I looked at all the great stuff I just couldn’t decide. Even though I know I’m going to Alaska and will undoubtedly do an album on the trip, I don’t know yet what the “tone” of the trip will be. I don’t know what the photos will be like. So how could I buy supplies yet?

Do you have a sense of what your natural style is?
How do you start an album or a layout?

Check THIS out! Xyron has announced a new portable, digital cutting system built on an innovative computer-on-board and memory card technology. Here’s a peek at the Xyron Portable Digital Cutting System:

Some details from the Xyron press release:

Weighing just 6-pounds, the Xyron® Personal Cutting System™ is a compact, book-based digital cutting system offering significantly greater flexibility than current die-based or PC-connected cutting systems. Initially, the Xyron Personal Cutting System will offer 27 alphabet options and more than 600 shape options through a collection of Shape, Font and Enhanced Design Books. Each Design Book is constructed around a memory card which holds the cutting patterns for the alphabets or shapes included in the book, and connects to the Personal Cutting System through the unit’s integrated docking station.

Font Design Books offer a complete alphabet, including upper and lowercase, numbers 0-9 and basic punctuation. Shape Design Books can include up to 30 theme-based shapes. Enhanced Design Books include a complete font and approximately 15 shapes that support a particular theme; Wedding & Love and Children & Babies, for example. Each Design Book weighs only a few ounces and can be carried inside the Personal Cutting System’s unique carrying case.

Adding to the flexibility of the Xyron® Personal Cutting System™, each element in a Design Book can be sized to three different sizes with just the touch of a button.

• 30 shapes is actually 90 shape options.

• One alphabet is 156 individual letters (312 if you also have shadows), 30 number options and 3-times the standard punctuation options!

The cutting area holds 4″ x 4″ paper, equal in size to the largest individual dies currently on the market, and can easily cut paper stocks from delicate Japanese rice papers to 80-pound cardstock.

Suggested Retail Pricing for the Xyron® Personal Cutting System™ is $199. This pricing includes the cutting unit, power cord, one cutting blade, non-transferring adhesive cutting mat, and two (2) Design Books; one (1) complete alphabet (upper & lower, numbers, punctuation) and one (1) book of standard shapes.

That sounds pretty cool to me - the next step forward in technology for scrapbooking.

Right now it seems the only place to get one is at your local scrapbook store, but I’ll keep you posted when I find somewhere else to get one.

Updated to Add:
The Xyron Cutting System becomes available on November 1st. Oooh, I can’t wait to see one.

Updated to Add [11/26/05]:
This is one hot item! It seems the only place to get them is at scrapbook stores or by ordering directly from Xyron. More bad news - the January shipment has sold out and the first time to get one is now MARCH! Geez, it just makes me want one even more. Do you have one? Is it on your wish list?

I came across this survey and took it. It was fun to answer and I thought it shared some insights into me that might be fun for the blog. Enjoy.

It was created by Michelle at Scrapability.com. (I missed the credit the first post, so this is an edit.)

Let me know if you take the survey and post it on your site. I’d love to know more about you too.