~A Hobby To Be Passionate About~

I love scrapbooking!  If there is a hobby to be passionate about, it would be scrapbooking.  I love to take pictures and have boxes and boxes of them to prove it.  I think I inherited it from my mother.  She took lots and lots of pictures.

In fact, right after I was born, I think she took a picture of me every week until I was about 23 weeks of age.  Why she stopped at that particular time, I don't really know.  But she did continue taking lots and lots of pictures.

Was I her first born child, you ask?  Well, yes I was, as a matter of fact!  In the early years, my mother had the wherewithal to at least write (on the back of the photo) who was in the picture, how old the person was and sometimes what the picture was about or where it was taken.  Yes, I was very fortunate.

Over time, life got in the way and she quit her 'mini journaling' for the most part and she died before I could ask her about the rest of the pictures.  Several years ago, I was introduced to a creative way to scrapbook and chronicle all those pictures...all the ones that she took and all those that I had been taking. Lots and lots of boxes of pictures!

  In those boxes were my family's history; who we were, where we came from, what we had done, etc. etc.  Pictures with no story, most with no notations and no sense of order. I wasn't quite as smart as my Mom and my children would be left with that if I didn't do something about it.

The importance of chronicling those photos; putting them in some sense of order, telling stories and storing them in a safe fashion became very real to me and scrapbooking became my passion.  I became a consultant for C***** M***** and shared the importance of scrapbooking to others while creating my own.

 It became fun to also chronicle places we had been, the things we had done.  It became fun to save little souvenirs to put in the scrapbooks.

This is where the scrapbooks are stored.  Having them available to be pulled out and looked out time and time again; hearing "oh, I forgot about this" or "oh, do you remember when..." or "Mom, your clothes looked so funny back then!"  All things that make my heart swell knowing I am doing the right thing.

  But, unfortunately, I'm not anywhere near done putting those books together!  For about eight years or so, I would work on them from time to time and then life got in the way.

This is my "Scrapbook Closet" located in my Sewing/Craft and Office room.  As you can see, I've got a ways to go.  I've got lots and lots of digital photos on my computer to work with!!!  Fortunately, I've also got a stash of new scrapbooks and pages to use.  I've GOT to get back to work on this hobby...time is getting away from me and I'm not getting any younger!!

I've thought about incorporating some digital scrapbooking in with my traditional scrapbooking.  I had heard that it was alot faster.  Plus the embellishments and papers could be used time and time again.  A bit of a money saver in the long run.  So, I took the plunge and purchased a software program for digital scrapbooking, got totally lost and confused and gave up.

Well, recently, I was approached by My Memories, a company that offers digital software to be used for creating digital style scrapbooks, to try out and review their software program.  I was ecstatic!  A company that was willing to let me "try out" their software and help me with any problems or glitches!  Woohoo!!

Tomorrow, I will share with you what I did, how I feel about this digital scrapbooking and, more importantly, whether or not I like this particular program and what this company has to offer!! And guess what???  They are allowing me to give away one of their products!!!

This will be my very first giveaway!  What better way to get a new blog off and running?!?  But you have to wait until tomorrow.  All I will say is that I encourage you to invite everyone you know, who may be interested in digital scrapbooking, to read tomorrow's post.  Who knows?  They may want to enter the giveaway, too!

Until then, if you are not an avid scrapbooker, I hope that you will give it some thought and maybe you will become passionate about this hobby, too!!

Make a day of memories today ~