I started scrapbooking in 1999 when we moved to Venezuela. I wanted to capture the experience of living abroad with more than just pictures. My first books consisted mostly of pasting pictures to the white pages of a post bound book and writing some journaling in black ink. I was afraid to do much more, because I thought I would do something wrong.
Once my son was born in 2001, I got even more serious about scrapbooking. I wanted to create permanent records of the great times we would share together as a family. Fourteen completed scrapbooks later, my cropping style of totally eclectic. Some pages are simple, other take me hours to complete. It really depends on the mood I am in and how much I am running my mouth at crops.
The one thing I can say about my scrapbooking is my love of gadgets and trying the newest style. Once I got over my fear of making mistakes, I have just gone wild. If it is out there I have tried it. My scrapbooking room is a testament of all the different tools I "had to have." My biggest love is letters. Since I am not fond of my own hand writing, I try to find creative ways of telling the story without using my own penmanship.
I also love teaching other scrapbookers to use techniques that are new to them. Seeing that look of "wow, look what I did" just makes me feel great. Since we are all such different people, I rarely walk out of any class or crop without learning something new myself. | 
