Scrapbooking

As you can read in my profile, I'm pretty big into scrapbooking. In fact, at this point in my life, it's also a big part of what I do for a living - not that I get paid to scrapbook by any means (but I can dream) but I do get paid to help others scrapbook, and that's not too bad.

I am, however, on the Design Team at Pages In Time, which makes all of the display pages that hang throughout the store. This is a huge privilege for me for many reasons, including:

• I'm not worthy. There are girls on the team with me (hey friends!) who get published on a regular basis. In fact, one of those girls just won an honorable mention from Creating Keepsakes (the scrapbooking magazine) in their Hall of Fame contest - now she's famous and has been invited onto other design teams for product manufacturers and everything! (Congrats Greta - I love you, even if I will never be in your league!) Everyone on the team in incredibly talented. Most of them don't submit to be published, but if they did - I KNOW they would be. I don't deserve to be on the team. They're just being nice to me.
• The pages that I make are seen by hundreds, even thousands, of people as they shop our store. It's incredibly exciting and motivating to hear someone comment on a page you've made when they don't know it's you who made it - it puts a huge smile on my face.
• Most of the pages I make have pictures of my kids on them, so not only do I get to look at pictures of my kids all day long while I'm at work, but other people see them and tell me how cute they are. That's cool.
• Did I mention that the other girls bury me in the area of talent??

In light of the fact that scrapbooking is such a large part of my life, I figure it's high time I share some of that with you here. The DT works pretty simply - it is divided into 4 teams of 3 and every month each team has a different assignment. Those assigments will be displayed in one of four possible places in the store:

• Product Challenge - Jamie (DT leader, creative genius, all-around cool cat) chooses 5 different scrapbooking products that every person on that team MUST use in their layout. There aren't really any other rules - it can typically be any theme, you just have to use the products she gives you (whether you like them or not!) and more, if you'd like.
• Product Spotlight - Jamie chooses a scrapbooking company whose products we'd like to feature and to show customers how they can be used. For example, she picks Making Memories and the 3 girls have to use as many different MM products as they can in as many different ways as they can think of.
• Technique of the Month - Jamie chooses a scrapbooking technique that all 3 girls have to incorporate into their layout or other projects. Some examples of techniques include: painting, stamping, distressing, using tags, embossing, metals, etc.
• Display Table - Jamie chooses (have you picked up a theme here? Jamie has a lot of control over us!) a theme for the display table and that team creates layouts and products that fall into that theme, ie. Father's Day, Graduation, Christmas, Easter, Wedding, etc.

So, for this week I submit to you the items I made for last month's Product Spotlight, which featured Scrapbook Wizard products. I made a one-page layout that featured my best friend Tammy's daughter, Allison. Very simple layout, but I like it. My small project was an altered clipboard - a little crafty, I know, but it was very easy. So, here they are...enjoy!