Welcome to My Scrappy World!

One of my goals for the year was to start a blog where I could share our plans to move to Alaska. But I also wanted to start a blog where I could share my thoughts, scrapbook pages and talk about life in general. So here I am!

I am an avid scrapbooker and would be perfectly happy if I could scrapbook 24/7/365! But that would mean I wouldn't have any pictures to scrap. So instead I scrap every chance I get. My favorite online group is www.123-scrap.com. It's a fun forum where we challenge each other and support each other in more than just scrappy things. In fact, I'm looking forward to celebrating their 4th birthday by participating in a cyber crop the weekend of March 14-16. If you've never participated in a cyber crop, check us out! It's a LOT of fun and a great way to get lots of pages done in a short time!

One of my scrapbooking specialties is doing heritage layouts. My grandfather was a photographer for the Army in WWI and was the historian for the building of the Panama Canal and the Washington Monument. Needless to say, photography has always been important to our family. And therefore, I have a TON of pictures waiting to be scrapped. I've nearly finished my Mom's side of the family photos and am working on my Dad's side as well.

Another specialty of mine is doing pages about my step-granddaughter, Molly, and my grandson, Noah. Molly is actually the reason I started scrapbooking in the first place! I have three full albums of her life. Molly is almost 6 now and lives about 3 hours north of here. And because Noah was a preemie and we weren't sure he would make it, and because he and his family lived in the South Florida area for just over two years, I already have 4 full albums about his life. Noah's about to turn 4. I miss them all terribly!

I also do albums called "Book of Me". Using prompts from sites like Angie Pedersen's www.onescrappysite and from www.123-scrap.com I make pages about myself and my interests. The purpose of these pages is to tell my family and descendants who I am, what I like and dislike, and other pertinent things about me since I'm usually the one behind the camera.

And with a man who grew up in Alaska and spent years as a commercial fisherman, I also have an album chronicling his years on the Fishing Vessel Volunteer. Plus I have several boxes and photo albums of pictures of Steve and his boys enjoying their lives in Alaska together. I'm hoping to start working on these pages sometime this year.

Add to these the many boxes of photos growing up myself with two brothers and our annual trips to fun places in the United States, and the many pictures of my daughter, Michele, growing up and I could probably fulfill my dream of scrapping 24/7/365 for at least a year without taking another photograph!

But photography and scrapbooking are totally intermingled so my camera and I are great friends! In fact, one of the ongoing challenges at 123-Scrap is the Photo A Week challenge. It encourages you to take out your camera even if there's not a special event or happening in your life. It's amazing what you find when you look for it!

And so I hope to update this blog a minimum of once a week, but sometimes it will be daily depending on what's happening in My Scrappy World! I plan to include my current scrapbooking projects and layouts along with some snippets of my daily life. So check back with me when you can and I hope to hear from you soon!