Crafting in the Real World

I've said it before: I'm a dyed-in-the-wool PAPERcrafter. I love paper. Have loved it since childhood.

I remember cutting out paper dolls and making them clothes from Christmas wrapping paper. I remember my first typewriter and the stacks of coloured paper I had for different uses: cream for poetry, gray for reports, blue for short fiction, purple for letters. I remember how delighted I was in high school when I found a box of gift wrap from the 1970's and wrapped the covers of my agenda and notebooks in it. And I'll never forget the stationery stores in Seoul with their neat little packages of 2 sheets of paper and coordinating envelope, the gorgeous handmade rice paper (that I taped to the windows for privacy in my curtain less bedroom) and the overflowing bins of amazing pens and markers.

So, of course, I love scrapbooking with paper. And as my husband will attest to, I have a fantastic stash of patterned paper. If you can name a manufacturer I don't have represented in my scrapbooks or my stash, they're probably not available in Canada. It is a huge stash. A monumental stash. A luxurious, inspiring, overflowing, rainbow, jealousy-inducing stash.

And also, of late, a very (sadly) neglected stash.

I have discovered the world of digital scrapbooking.

I won't say I was dragged kicking and screaming into the virtual scrapbooking world, but it was a prolonged, reluctant courtship--that I'm happy to say has blossomed into a loving and wonderful relationship. I love digital scrapbooking. Almost as much as I love paper.

When I became a Close To My Heart Independent Consultant last February, I decided to finally see what all the fuss was about. I signed up for a Studio J membership.

Now, I'm an avid scrapbooker. I average about 3 or 4 hours a week scrapbooking; more if there's a crop that week. And I get a good 3 to 5 pages done per month. Of course, for me, much of my love for this hobby is about the crafting, not necessarily getting pages done, but it is so very satisfying to have completed projects.

For the past few years, my goal has been to never be more than 2 years behind in my annual scrapbooks. And with effort, I've kept up.

Studio J is going to change all that for me. And I'm thrilled!!

I began working in Studio J in mid-February and to date, I have 17 new double-page layouts in my albums and 3 more on the way. That's 17 pages in 3 weeks. Now, I've done 10 pages in 10 days before--but they weren't the most complicated pages, and at the end of it I'd had enough of scrapping and took a few weeks respite. No so with Studio J! I can't get enough. And it's always there waiting for me.

It's an online application that's really easy to use (which is VERY important for someone ask tech-savvy as me--that is to say, not at all) and I can work on my layouts at bit at a time. This has always been my lament with scrapbooking. That I've needed a good chunk of time (at least 2 hours) to make it worthwhile. After all, the first and last half hours are spent getting everything out and then putting everything back. I continue to long for a scrapbooking space of my own where I can just leave unfinished projects on my worktable and not worry about them. Studio J is the next best thing.

My layouts are always there. I can work on them bit by bit--10 minutes here, 5 minutes there--until they are exactly they way I want them. But honestly, it doesn't really take long to create online at all. Here is one of my favourite Studio J layouts.

It took me all of 15 minutes to complete. Granted, I didn't stray too far from the template design. I just  added the photos, switched up the papers, coloured the elements (like the ribbons and brads), added the stickers and borders, distressed all the edges and added the journaling. The journaling actually took a long time because this is a page about an event I didn't attend and all K and H had to say about it was "It was great!".

Now, here's another Close To My Heart layout using the same template, but crafted in the physical world.

Now, you'll notice that this is a pretty simple layout. All I had to do was print the photos, trim the photos, ink the edges, trim and ink all the papers, stamp the flowers, colour the chipboard, adhere everything to the page, add the stickers and journaling. I would have stamped the title and stamped some other images on the left side, but it was already so late, I just wanted to get this page into the book. Because it was after midnight. And I'd been working on this page for 3 hours. (Not counting the time I spent trying to get my photos printed.)

So, it's no wonder I'm hooked on Studio J. My new scrapbooking goal is to have my 2010 album completed in classic scrapbooking and my 2011 album completed in Studio J and have both of them finished by December 31, 2012. If I can accomplish it, my annual scrapbooks will only be a year behind! And then I can turn my attention to some albums that haven't been getting enough: my wedding and my heritage albums.

Wish me luck!

Plug: Visit my website to check out more of my Studio J art and buy some great Close To My Heart products! http://www.susanagomes.myctmh.com/