I was so surprised to learn that I would be the diva this week! I am very honored, and I hope you find something that inspires you.
Jennipher asked me to stop by and introduce myself.
First, just a little about me. I am a lawyer by day (you can go to my firm's website if you really want to:
www.mckoolsmith.com), and a mom, wife, stamper, scrapper, and Stampin' Up! demonstrator by night. I have a husband of 5 years, a 10.5 month old daughter named Evelyn (who you'll be seeing a lot of in my most recent pages), an 80 pound dog named Mulligan, and a cat named Chaucer. I live in Dallas, but was born and raised in the Kansas City burbs. I also have to share (because I'm so proud) that on July 20 I completed my first triathlon -- a Sprint distance race, which means 500 meter swim, 25 K bike ride, and 5 K run. I'm going to be sitting down to work on those pictures very soon.
Now, a little about my scrapping philosophy (this is not a criticism of other appproaches, just an articulation of how I prefer to scrap).
1. Lots of pictures. Most magazine LOs are completely unrealistic for my life. If I only put 1 picture on a page, I'd never get through. This is also the reason why I usually do 2 page layouts. I usually have more photos of an event than will fit on 1 page.
2. Scrap what you have. Most of my layouts involve color 4 x 6 photos because that is what I printed. Other than printing the occasional larger photo or printing in black and white, I don't alter my photographs. I am interested in scrapping the memories as they were, not in taking time to "alter" my pictures with effects to make them more artistically pleasing. I also usually keep cropping minimal, quick and easy, except that I do a lot of 4 x 4 (or 3.75 x 3.75) squares, and even some tiny squares with my punches when I want to get A LOT of photos on a page.
This philosophy also means that I am not one of those scrappers you see in magazines that is going to take extra pictures of, say, my shoes just so I can scrap what my shoe collection says about me, or, say, pictures of my laundry, my messy desk at work, and my breast pump so I can do a day in the life of me page. Maybe my great grandchildren would want to know that about me, but honestly, I just don't have time to make up extra page themes, I have plenty to scrap as it is.
3. Bold colors, clean lines. The recent trend of of (in my mind) messy, graffiti-like, doodly "artistic" pages just doesn't speak to me. I stick with a lot of linear designs with blocks of color.
4. Don't reinvent the wheel, but make it yours. I believe in using all the resources for ideas available to me. So if I inspire you, it's probably because someone else inspired me. I'm sure you'll notice a bit of Becky Higgins style and sketches in my work. Also, for a lot of my work using Stampin' Up! Simply Scrappin' kits, my layouts are roughly based on the samples that are included in the kits. Nevertheless, I seldom do exactly what a sketch or sample says just becasue my brain won't let me (it's the contrarian lawyer side of me, I guess), I feel compelled to do something different to make it my own.
5. Stamping on my pages, and mostly Stampin' Up! supplies. I like the flexibility of stamping backgrounds, titles, and accents. I'm a SU demonstrator, so I use what I have. But I do have a stash of other stuff (especially quotes -- I am still recovering for a period about 2 years ago where I bought pretty much every quote I saw) that I slowly use over time. Since this is a stampers website for the most part, when I use no stamps or non-Stampin' Up! stuff, I often don't post my layouts here.
Thanks again for choosing me. It's always a thrill to be recognized.
IFC07: 9/12/08 jenhenry
WOW!
