My Scrapbooking Obsession - The Background.

This not being able to share my projects is really making things tough. I guess at least I'm being productive, but having to keep things under wraps is really making it difficult to come up with things to write about.

Since I need to get my scrapbook juices flowing and finish some pages for my cousin Jenna's online auction, I figured that I'll do a few features on scrapbooking this week, culminating with me displaying the items I'm submitting for her.

I will admit...I am a scrapbooking addict. I love it. I love the photos, I love the supplies and I like sharing my finished projects. It is a hobby that I will never give up.

So...a little history about how I've gotten where I am with this hobby now...

I've been scrapbooking since 2002 when I was in dental school. The craft has come a long way since then. When I first started I was making pages using construction paper, stencils and Mrs. Grossman's stickers. It was pretty low key. Some people don't like looking at the old style and continue to update their pages with the new supplies and styles. If I did that I'd never get anything done. So I've settled with leaving things alone.

I originally started working in 8 1/2 x 11" pages. Really that's all there was at that time - at least commonly. As time went on I started to work with other sizes. Most of my albums are now 12 x 12" with my mini-albums being either 6 x 6" or, more commonly, 8 x 8". I like mixing things up. It keeps it from getting boring.

So nowadays, my pages look something like this :

Whereas when I first started, my pages looked like this :

This is actually my very FIRST scrapbook page. Slightly embarrassing.

When I first started, I fell in love with Lisa Bearnson. For those of you not in the know, she is pretty much the queen of scrapbooking. She is a mega scrapper, used to run Creating Keepsakes Magazine (CK) and was a regular on QVC selling scrap supplies. She's now more or less retired. I started getting CK in 2003 and kept my subscription until early last year. I currently follow some of the bigger scrappers like Ali Edwards, Becky Higgins and Elizabeth Kartchner.

I was lucky enough in 2008 to be given an awesome early birthday gift from Collin and his mom Carole. They signed me up to attend CKU (Creating Keepsakes University). It was an awesome experience of three full days of scrapbooking with the masters. I was able to take classes from Tim Holtz...

Don't judge me in these photos...pretty sure I was running on little to no sleep. Not my prettiest...

 and Ali Edwards, among others.

I had a blast and learned a lot of new stuff. I also met Lisa Bearnson and it turned out to be more or less her last CKU. Lucky me.

One of my best takeaways from the experience was learning Ali's style. We put together an album entitled Evolution. It was so much fun and it makes me want to try to break out of the mold a little more often.

I'll probably share this album at some point, but here's a little taste.

I always enjoy learning something new or trying new products. I'm looking forward to a few new things in 2012. (Wow...it seems crazy writing that down and knowing that it's right around the corner.)

I've gotten myself a Smash book...

...and I'll be using that to keep all the little odds and ends that I gather through the year.

I'm also thinking about doing something along the lines of Becky Higgins' Project Life

I'm excited to see where these new ideas will take me.

For those of you new to scrapbooking, it can be overwhelming at first. But don't let it be. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about my favorite scrapbooking tools and products and why they make my scrapbooking life so much easier. After that, I'll share a little more of my scrapbook evolution - both in terms of my pages and my methods. In the meantime, if there's something specific you want me to cover or a question you have about anything you're seeing, please shoot me a comment. I love them and appreciate every single one.

Happy scrapping!