When I got married, I was introduced to scrapbooking. I fell in love with the idea of doing something more beautiful and interesting with our family photos than simply putting them in photo albums. I also loved the idea of designing my own wedding album.
I joined a monthly Stampin’ Up! club and began learning and applying basic design techniques to make scrapbook pages, cards, and decor items.
Later, I worked part time at Scrapbooker’s Paradise, simply because I wanted to learn more about paper crafting and design techniques. I enjoyed being surrounded by beautiful things and learning how to make them myself. I was fascinated by scrapbooking magazine articles and especially by layout challenges.
Right after my first baby was born, I was introduced to Heritage Makers, which was a digital storybooking company. HM was a perfect fit for me, because with a new baby, it was much easier, less messy, and faster to design my scrapbook albums online.
One of my first projects was to digitize my wedding album. My original album was traditionally scrapbooked, and was huge and clunky and seemed fairly delicate as time went on. Our updated album was easier to fit on a shelf and felt less precarious during viewing!
I also had fun using digitally-designed scrapbook pages to create memory boxes for keepsakes from our wedding and each of our babies' births.
Heritage Makers was a multi-level marketing company, and I eventually became a consultant to get a discount. I submitted some of my designs to become templates in the Heritage Makers Template Gallery, and I was always thrilled when they were accepted. Templates undergo scrutiny by a design team. In the few years that I was an active consultant, I had over 50 templates in the Template Gallery.
After I joined Heritage Makers, I discovered that not only did I do well at design, but I also excelled at using computers. In the last year before Heritage Makers was bought out, I was asked to teach the monthly classes for other consultants to learn better how to use the program. Combining visual design and technical skill was new and exciting for me, and it was extremely satisfying to be considered competent enough that others sought my advice.
Working as a Heritage Makers consultant, I was encouraged to start a blog, and I was constantly trying to figure out how to personalize more and more of it. The digital design obsession began here!
I had a blast as a consultant, won some awards, and even got to go on the annual cruise. I loved designing things for my business, both online and in print. I was even asked to design things for the company's local events.
I was sometimes paid to design things for other business owners as well, including photographers and our local preschool. I frequently had the fun opportunity to design things for others, like wedding stationary or yearbooks.
Heritage Makers is sadly no longer, but there are now several other personal publishing companies available, and I love making beautiful things for my home and family.
