What does it take to get those creative juices flowing enough to actually start being creative again? All those good intentions I have to spend the day or even an hour in my scrap room more often than not seem to get side tracked. That is not to say I haven't done cards, school projects or baby shower props but not a single scrapbook page has crossed by table. How sad is that. My laptop dying was a real wake up call. When I went to reload all my programs on the new one it brought it all home how much I had been neglecting my craft. Reloading my favorites Make The Cut and Sure Cuts Alot reminded me how much Provocraft doesn't play well with third party software. But checking out another new cutting machine will become a whole different chapter. Provocraft customer service was more than pleasant and helpful with reloading and updating a new Design Studio though. Inkscape was like riding a bike, a little rusty at first but you realize it all comes back when you start peddling. Inkscape is like having canvas and paints where the end results are limitless. I can think of so many new things I want to turn into cut files. 
Photo editing and desktop publishing programs were next. Up date the old standards and/or try new ones? I did add another photo editor, Corel Paint Pro X4 (it has a fantastic easy use plug-in for some great filters) plus I had used a much older version in the past and liked it. Serif Page Plus X6 Desktop publisher is another I added (I still have to make time to play with this one). Now I still need to replace my old font viewer with a new font manager to access the growing collection of almost 4000 font files I don't want to actually install in windows. All said and done I now have a new scrap room laptop ready for business. Here we go again!
This is of course my granddaughter Jayla
who has always been one of my favorite scrap page subjects
