Thank You Stacy Julian!

When I first moved to Arizona in 2006, it was just me and my then five-year-old. My mother's older brother, my uncle (may he RIP) lived in a community a few miles away. He was waiting for his wife to retire and relocate and I was waiting for my mom and dad. Other than my uncle and my son, I had no one. I lived in my mom's house with all of my scrapbook supplies remaining in boxes for the next six months while I waited for my house to be completed.

Having my scrappy stuff in storage was hard, especially with no other creative outlet. Even after my house was completed and I was all moved in, it would be many months before I could begin scrapbooking again. About six months after moving, my scrap space was all set up, but I had no one to scrap with. Then I discovered Big Picture Scrapbooking now called Big Picture Classes. I signed up for my very first class in January of 2007 and since then have registered for over 35 classes. Though I often crafted in solitude it always felt like my BPC friends were never too far away. BPC is what kept me crafting, creating and smiling, even when I was lonely and questioning why I would ever leave L.A. to move to this godforsaken suburb of Phoenix. I couldn't wait to get home from work so that I could log in, get on the message boards and browse the gallery.

It was Lisa Day's class, Journey to Perpetual Happiness, that finally got me into a much better place mentally and emotionally and helped me dump some "baggage" that had grown much too heavy for any one woman to carry! I owe a lot to Big Picture Classes and because I do, I will always remain a loyal and faithful member. While my participation in classes and on the boards may wax and wane due to work loads and just life in general, BPC is never far from my heart. It was my first online crafty community and you know how we women feel about our firsts!

So... before this post gets much too long... I have to say a HUGE thank you to Stacy Julian for starting this community. For recognizing the artist in me when you called to tell me that one of my layouts from Library of Memories was going to be used as the login page for the LOM Community. Yes folks...Stacy Julian called me! Trust me when I tell you I thought someone was playing with me!

Thank you Stacy for sending me "Happy Mail." And now... for gifting me with a seat in your latest class  "The Art + Science of Scrapbooking." I can't wait for class to start and hope that I can keep up!


WrinkleFreeDiva

A Different Direction

Have you ever started a layout with a specific outcome in mind, and as you begin to work, you realize it is taking a totally different direction and you feel powerless to correct it? That's what happened with this layout.

I made this layout to satisfy two challenges; the first was from a sketch posted on the Sistas Scrap Too messageboard over at cricut.com. The sketch was one done by Valerie Salmon and posted over at Got Sketch. You can see the sketch here. The other challenge I decided to satisfy was one from Stacy Julian sent to the LOM Community over at BigPictureScrapbooking.com. We were to create a layout using seven pictures from our Storage Binders.

Since this layout was about my son's birthday, my intent was to use colors and patterned paper to create a layout that projected a happy day. Now remember, I am "patterned paper challenged." So, I decided to pull some paper from my DCWV -  Fun in the Sun Summer Stack a stack that I bought on clearance a year or two ago. While the colors and the patterns go together well, I ended up with an unintended result. Despite the yellow background, my layout started to have a decidedly "4th of July" feel to it. So I chose another pattern to use for the title to kind of offset that feel. Not so sure that I succeeded, but it is what it is.

What I learned with this layout is:

1. I really need to work at not pasting things down as I go. I have tendency to do this which means it becomes very hard to make changes if you're not happy with the result.
2. The paper was not cardstock weight and usually when I use paper this light I adhere it to another piece of cardstock. I was lazy this time and didn't do so. Consequently there was some buckling in some of the pieces that I adhered and a little warping in the layout.
3. I should have made the frame for my title a little narrower from top to bottom, or placed the letters a little higher within the frame. The current placement gives the look of trapped white space.

Thanks for looking!

An Exciting Thing Happened to Me!!

An exciting thing happened to me yesterday. It was a little after twelve noon. I had just finished my breakfast and was sipping my coffee when the phone rang. The special ring tone let me know that the call was from out of the area and so I automatically looked at the Caller ID to see who it was. The caller ID said "Stacy Julian." She's the founder of Big Picture Scrapbooking and Simple Scrapbooks Magazine (oh do I miss this magazine). I'm thinking "nahhhhhhhh" couldn't be and was even hesitant about answering the phone! But I did anyway. The caller asked to speak to me and I said "this is she speaking." The caller said, "this is Stacy Julian." And still unbelieving me said "THE Stacy Julian?" She chuckled and said something to the effect of she didn't know if there were any others. To make a long story short...she thanked me for being a big part of the Big Picture Scrapbooking community and said that she wanted to use a layout I had done when I was a student in Library of Memories last year, as the button/link for getting into the Library of Memories community. I was almost speechless. Me, who never thinks my work is good enough, was being asked to be a part of something so special. Words cannot express how jazzed I am (even though I have one picture on there that I never intended to have it see the light of day!!! One guess which one!

Here is the layout that is being used: