Studio J

Have you heard the news? Close to My Heart is coming out with a digital scrapbooking program called Studio J - and it features the CTMH paper packs and layouts (from Cherish and Imagine) that we all love. Now, I will say, that I wasn't sure about it when I first started hearing about it. After all, I spent a lot of time last year taking classes from Jessica Sprague and learning how to digi-scrap in Photoshop Elements. But I liked the idea of using CTMH's paper packs and coordinating embellishments and stickease.

After months of anticipation, I finally get to take Studio J for a test run. My first attempt didn't wow me away. But to be fair, I was at work listening to a training call and couldn't really give Studio J 100% of my attention. So, last night after I got Miss B in bed, I took Studio J for another spin and here are my thoughts.

1. Super easy to navigate - start a project, upload pictures, pick a paper pack, pick a layout.
2. The program offers you 6 different paper combinations to use on the layout (no more wasted time trying to figure out what papers go together - although there is still the option to swap out the papers if you want something different).
3. From there, it is just drag and drop your photos and add embellishments/stickease and journaling.
4. The Studio J layouts also come up with suggested embellishments, which you then apply your color of choice. I really like this feature because I always find it hard to figure out what kind of embellishments I want to add to my layouts. And if you don't want the suggested embellies, you just delete them off and you can add your own. Pretty cool, don't you think?
5. Lastly, I love how fast, simple and easy it was. I put together 3 layouts (2-pagers) in about an hour.

I know I probably didn't even begin to touch the capabilities of Studio J, but for a quick run, I was pretty jazzed when I was done. It is a great scrapbooking option for someone like myself who doesn't have a lot of time to devote to scrapbooking. Now with that said, you might ask if I am going to convert over to the digital world and leave traditional scrapbooking behind. Ha ha ha. In a single word, no. I still like to touch/feel and physically put together my layouts. But Studio J will still play an integral part in my scrapbooking because it has a feature that excites me even more than how quickly I could get my layouts done. It is a great planning tool! How much time do we all spend trying to figure out what size to print our photos - which papers we want to use - how do we want to lay it out - and then finally get to putting the layout together? I can say that it definitely takes me a couple of hours to put together a single 2-page layout.

So going back to the fact that I put together 3 layouts in an hour last night. How great is that? I easily shaved off 4-5 hours of time that I would have spent without Studio J. I'm going to a scrapbook retreat in March and you can bet that I will be using Studio J to plan the pages I want to complete that weekend. I'm definitely jazzed about the possibilities of what I can get done. Dare I even say that I can see myself making a serious dent in my scrapbooking backlog this year? Be sure to check out the Studio J website (linked up above) and let me know what you think.