Ok, I have a confession to make. You know that I offered Donna Downey’s book for my first bloggy giveaway this week. But what you don’t know is that I hadn’t actually read it yet… or even held one in my hands. Yes, it was a little bit of a gamble to offer something I hadn’t read yet, but I knew the odds were good that it was just as great as it looked to be.

(I live in Las Vegas, of course I knew what my odds were!)

(Not that I actually gamble at the casinos or anything).

(Ok, sometimes when my husband and I go to the movies, we stick a few bucks in the mega-bucks slot machine – but only because it’s conveniently located outside the lobby of the movie theater, which is conveniently located IN a casino).

(Because you know, if you ARE going to gamble, mega-bucks is the one to try for).

(Why am I talking about gambling? Right… back to the book review! And the fact that I gambled on my giveaway with Donna’s book).

And as it turns out folks, I was SO right! Donna Downey’s “A Photos-First Approach to Designing Layouts“ book arrived yesterday, and I spent an hour devouring it.

First, let me say that it is primarily written from a paper scrappers viewpoint, and written FOR paper scrappers. HOWEVER, it would still be a fun and useful book for digital scrapbookers. If you are a digi-gal, you can just skip over the part about printing pictures, and move on to the meat of the book, which consists of 25 fabulous sketches.

And these sketches are fun, easy, and versatile. For a reason! The first page of the book sums it all up with the title, “reuse, recycle, repeat”. Donna’s strategy in this book is to offer up sketches that can be reused over and over again. In discussing the PILES of pictures that need to be scrapped, she says, “The best solution I’ve found for getting my photos out of my stacks and into my scrapbooks is to rely on trusty formulas”. She compares the idea of reusing layouts to the gourmet chef who has a “can’t fail” recipe.

She goes on to say, “The sketches include in this book are like those “can’t fail” recipes. You start with a basic formula, add a few different ingredients, and watch as the magic occurs”.

She is so right, and she proves it too! Each sketch comes with four sample layouts, showing the versatility of the sketch. And there are 25 sketches, with multiple photos. If you have been wanting to scrap more photos on a page, this is definitely the book to get. Donna shows how to scrap four, five, six…. all the way to TEN photos on a page – and she shows how to do it WELL. The samples are fabulous, and I found myself anxious to sit down and scrap some of those more photo-heavy layouts that I’ve been avoiding – like birthdays and Christmas. You know, Martha’s first birthday? With all the “eating her first cake” pictures? There are several sketches in this book that will work perfectly with those photos.

So, after 25 sketches with samples, you’d think the book would be complete, but no. Donna includes a 2 page spread with SIXTEEN additional sketches to keep the creativity going. That’s a lot of sketches, folks. And again, they are all multi-photo sketches, with plenty of room for adapting and letting the “magic occur”.

To sum up, it’s a 2 thumbs up for Donna’s book, and I’m so excited to be giving it away to someone! Whether paper or digi, or a mix of both, this book is sure to get your creative juices going and make you excited about scrapping those stacks (or hard-drive) full of photos!

If you haven’t already signed up for the Bloggy Giveaway, click on over and do that now. And check out the other three giveaways too – Giveaway #2 is ending this evening, and #3 and #4 go until Saturday afternoon/evening.

And in case you can’t wait to see if YOU are the winner of the giveaway and want to get this book NOW, here is a link to Donna’s site: