So What Was So Great About Your Improvement?

This layout was designed by me and created in the late Summer of 2004. My sister in law, niece, and mother in law had just been to visit us and I was recording the event.

The thing that made this so much different was the fact that I not only made my own layout (no sketch) but I chose papers from different manufacturers. I used a Sizzlet font and some brads! All of these were new concepts but I was off of my intoductory to scrapbooking and onto new ideas! I liked the way I combined the patterns and the colors. Kris and I won, it wasn't a lot of money or a big prize, just a bag of goodies like brads and clips, ribbons and flowers. It was the recognition that was most meaningful to me!

My First Layout Ever

This is the first layout that I ever made. I bought a Susan Branch Photo album kit at Mikes with a 40% off coupon. My husband and I were coming up on our fifth wedding anniversary and I wanted to make a book for him remembering the years of our courtship and marriage.

I can't believe how totally plain and strange it is to me now! The sentiment is there and even though the journal entry is brief it's to the point.

The first contest that I entered I won along with a good friend of mine, Kris. The contest was to show how your work has improved since you first began scrapping. For me, the only way to go was up!

You're Still You

Click on the third from the left picture of Josh and hear my favorite song. A bitter/sweet song that reminds me in a peaceful finished until the second coming of my relationship with my hero, my father. My scrapping started in 1996 as I dabbled with various, kits bought with 40% off coupons from Mike's and continued along the hobby store vein until my father died December 8, 2004. This sent me on a reel of emotions, I quit my job and with the exception of a three month stent as a secretary for my husband, I have become a SAHW.

This allowed me to not only seek out new friendships in our small town but to take classes and see the pretty paper, the hot stuff available and I was hooked.

Not hooked because of the desire to buy more and more but rather because I had found a way to express myself through writing, lyrics, pictures, and patterns.

I'd grown up sewing dresses and anything else I could try but when I became an adult it just wasn't as fun to try to make a dress in size 16 as in size 6!

The patterned papers reminded me of fabrics. I love to put different patterns together, we weren't allowed to do that in the 60's, according to Mom!

My under the bed storage box for my scrapbook materials has grown into a room that I call my studio. I feel connected in so many ways when I am in my studio and with my pictures, computer, supplies and printer.

I'm not really here to debate home printed pictures vs. photoshop prints or totally AC/LF books. I do try to keep the known offenders away from the pictures but this is my craft, my way of expressing myself, it helps me and if that's all it does, it's worth it!