I don’t get much time to scrapbook.

Many of my friends have created beautiful albums. One for each kid, for grandma, for each year…. Yes, these ladies should teach parenting tips courses on how they manage it all.

I have abandoned several approaches. I started by year, then tried by kid. And now I have a lot of half done albums. I don’t know if I will ever truly catch up.

A few years ago I came across a site called Digital Scrapbook Place. Every time I visit this site I get a shot of inspiration. Not only do they showcase people’s work, but they offer tutorials, articles and classes on creating scrapbook pages on the computer - digital scrapbooking.

Once you complete the free registration, you can download what they call “freebies”. These are backgrounds (the digital version of fancy paper), frames, embellishments, word art and more. This is a great resource for the starting out. There is also a store with lots of good graphics for purchase.

The best part about a digital album is that, once created, it can be given to or shared with as many people as you like.

Julie Bonner at Declutter It! has hosted a blog carnival (links to a collection of blog entries) on organizing your home and office.

You will find a lot of great advice from several bloggers (including me!) - just in time for spring cleaning.

Thanks, Julie!

If you have kids in elementary school, you have probably heard of Webkinz.

You buy the stuffed animals at specialty stores and use the attached secret code at their website. (they are not available at large chain stores but rather at smaller specialty stores - there is a store locator tool at www.webkinz.com) The secret code gives you access to the web version of the stuffed animal for one year - after this you have to pay a renewal fee if you want to continue for another year.

Once online, your web animal comes with a room, a few starter furnishings, and some virtual Kinzcash. You then play arcade style games to earn more Kinzcash, which your pet can use to buy virtual food, clothing, furnishings etc. You can play games against, chat with, and invite other Webkinz over to your room. However, the chat is limited to canned, preset phrases and only Webkinz that you have placed on your friends list can come over - you can also kick them out at any time.

There are also daily events which your pet can do once a day - among these is our favorite, the gem hunt. Every day your pet gets three chances to mine a gem. Once you acquire all of the available gems you get “the legendary crown of wonder”.

My kids each have one pet but many of their friends have several.

When toy ideas like this take off, I wonder how the project got started. Globeandmail.com has a good article on the background of Webkinz.

And families.com has a unique idea on how long distance family members can use Webkinz to keep in touch and stay involved in each others lives.

How many of your kids play Webkinz, and what are your thoughts about this virtual playground?

Recently, my fifth grader came home from school with stories of how some of his classmates had created a video and posted it on Youtube.

While I was impressed with the kids technical know-how, it also made me wonder if the popular video hosting service is a good playground for 11 year olds.

The types of home videos that people can create and post there are largely uncensored. Youtube is not the only culprit - apparently Google, Yahoo!, and MSN also have similar type sites.

CNET.com in their Living with Technology section has posted an article entitled User-generated videos challenge parental controls. It is good food for thought.