Thursday, March 1, 2007

postheadericon Part 5 - Digital at Last

During my second year with Scrapbooking.Com online magazine, and my second year retired from the classroom, we headed to Florida for 6 weeks and to check out a house from my Father-in-Law.

You can't POSSIBLY imagine all I hauled with me so I could keep up with my job. I was also representing the company on a scrapbooking cruise sponsored by my local scrapbook store by teaching some classes on the cruise. I had 13 pieces of luggage to take on board the ship. That was only PART of what I had hauled down from Michigan.

The second year going to Florida I was no longer with SB.C but still managed to fill a pick-up with scrapping supplies. Cruising the Internet I discovered some digital scrapbooking sites. By the time we left for home in the spring I was converted 100%. My sister-in-law and my niece relieved me of a lot of the product in the garage. I just couldn't part with my favorite papers, rubber stamps or bags. Then one new scrapper in the family had a baby and more was given away. Another was making a scrapbook for her grandfather who was not expected to live much longer and more was gone. Now I only have a couple of bags and a tackle box of supplies and some tools.

For the last few years I have been content to join challenges and attend chats on various websites, most often the Digital Scrapbook Place. My gallery there is so big I am actually embarrassed over it.
lauraloub gallery at DSP

postheadericon Part 4 - A Surprise Professional

Well, I got the job with Scrapbooking.Com. I was a professional! I was writing articles, tutorials with pictures, and technique lessons. An article and 8 layouts a month was a lot to do and I was working or thinking about layouts all the time.

When the SB.C Editor found my son-in-law was also scrapping with me, he was hired just to make layouts. For a while he was the only male in our scrapbook world as far as anyone knew. He has become too busy with family, teaching, and coaching to pursue this hobby, but I hope he comes back to it soon. His precision and geometric style are unique.

All of our work is still archived at Scrapbooking.Com.
Laura Lou at SB.C
Michael at SB.C

The biggest thrill about being a "pro" was being able to attend HIA (now CHA, I think) in Anaheim, California. I was able to meet the other designers I knew only from email, forum, and teleconferences. "Doing" the show was amazing but as tiring as working for the Great Lakes Mega Meet (GLMM). Many of the "names" from the GLMM were there and it HAD to make an impression on my bosses when I was greeted with hugs.

Finally after 2 years and several changes of administration, only 2 of the original EDs were left. One more change and we were gone too. Because of our length of service we were allowed to keep all of the product which had been sent to each of us by the scrapbooking companies. I had even been given a Sizzix and a whole set of alpha dies. Many of the companies just sent us their whole line and were happy that we used and credited their materials in 2 or so layouts. I had a garage full of supplies and equipment.

postheadericon Part 3 - Still Working with Paper and Paste

The owner of my local scrapbook store and her relatives were an energetic bunch. On the flight back from a convention they were talking about how disappointed they were. Then someone said they thought THEY could do better and soon the Great Lakes Mega Meet was born. Looking for workers brought them to the MIscrappers for volunteers. They gave me the honor of being one of the few paid workers and, boy, did I work! They had printed 20,000 show booklets and those were gone before noon on the second of the 3 days. Taking tickets, giving out passes, selling classes, selling tickets and giving out booklets was all in one place and that was my area. My girls worked their tails off and I was making runs back to the office and safe with wads of cash every few minutes. No one had expected this response to the first scrapbook expo in the Great Lakes area.

Over the next few years my duties changed to liaison to the instructors, many of them the "names" in the business. Getting to know them was a delight, whether I was able to attend their classes or not. I really bonded with some of them and miss them most from the paper world.

At one of the expos I won a page layout contest. Now those who know me know I rarely compete. Too thin-skinned about not winning I guess. But we were so afraid there wouldn't be enough entries we all put something into the contest. So did the public and it was a large contest after all. I got to know the ladies from Scrapbooking.Com through the contest and win. A year or so later there was a call for editorial designers for the company and I applied.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007

postheadericon Part 2 - Acid Free at last

In 1994, in the dreary month of February, I gave in to knee surgery for my arthritis. Since it was out-patient surgery, I assumed that I would go right back to school after a weekend's recovery. HA! The Dr. said it would be more like 6 weeks. No one prepared me for post-op depression, in February, in the North, in a corner of a sofa day after day. I had no interest even in my computer community of PAL...Print Artist Lovers. We used the Print Artist program for crafting. No...not for scrapbooking. Not yet.

Leafing through the ad section of one Sunday newspaper I came across a Michaels Ad
with a little area titled, "Scrapbooking Supplies". I perked up for the first time in a couple of weeks. "I want to go there!" I said.

A dear friend on one side, my daughter on the other and a shopping cart in front I managed to drop $150 on that first visit. I learned what "drop-in" page protectors were. I learned the term "Acid-Free". We watched the demonstration, a nice little teen scrapping her prom photos. My daughter whispered that she thought I could do a lot better. I was game to try. I started by removing all those photos from the "sticky albums".

While making those first few pages I also looked online to see what there was on scrapbooking. I found an email list. It had about 50 members from all over the world. The US members were one by one, crowing about their local scrapbook stores. I waited and waited for one in my area.

Then one opened only 11 minutes from my house. Are you surprised that I know exactly how long it took to get there? Their tiny store had to put card tables all in the aisles when they held a crop.

I couldn't wait to share the news with the email list. All of sudden there were a lot of private emails from other members in Michigan wanting to know where this store was. We needed our own list to plan on meeting somewhere. Another member, younger and more techie, started a new list and we called ourselves
MIscrappers.

The store offered to host a get together. We called it a Mini-Meet, like the old PALS group used to have. That first Meet was a huge success for the group and the store. There were many meets to come and the store moved into larger quarters.

postheadericon Part 1 - My Scrapping History

Way back in 1956, when a freshman in college I liked to hand-draw my own greeting cards, especially for dates. Soon some of my dorm-buddies wanted custom cards, too, so I went into business.

From that I progressed to making scrapbook pages after each big event. We always had lots of little gifts from the dances, and formal photos from any of the Greek events. I was using a scrapbook with manila paper pages. I used rubber cement and water colors for decoration. I prized those books, mostly as a record of dating, and sorority events. I remember friends coming into my dorm room the day after an event to see what I had made.

Alas, all of the books, souvenirs and pages were lost right after we moved to our first house in 1966 and the basement flooded. I just hadn't unpacked everything yet. The negatives to snapshots were all lost, too, so there is no photo record of my college years at all.

About Me

Forty Years of Scrapping

Long before it was popular, I was trying to decorate arrangements of photos and sentimental items. Here I want to share some of my personal history and more important, some ideas I have gleaned from more than 40 years of scrapping.

lauraloub

lauraloub
A granny with a camera and a computer

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