keeping up with the johnsons

I started a family website in 2004 as a way for my husband and me to keep up with friends and family across the country. At first it was a place to put photos of the babies and the occasional funny story. Then, when I discovered digital scrapbooking in December of 2006, it became a place to share layouts and connect with other digital scrappers. When I decided to try my hand at actually creating digital scrapbooking supplies around April of 2007, I had no idea how many people would discover our little home on the web. As a way of introducing myself and my family to you, here are a few facts that you may find interesting as well as answers to the questions I seem to get most often.

WHY DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING?

I tried traditional scrapbooking in the late '90's after the birth of my niece. I had all sorts of grand plans to make adorable books for her which never came to pass. I amassed a sizeable collection of papers, embellishments, and various tools of the trade only to end up packing them--unused--every couple of years when I moved to a new place. I was intimidated by the finality of actually cutting my beautiful papers or using up my cute little elements and so I didn't do anything with them at all. When I found digiscrapping and the freedom it afforded through creating things digitally, I knew I had found my niche. I'm a bit of a geek at heart and it appeals to all of my interests: photography, writing, memory-keeping, and graphic design.

WHY HOMESCHOOL?

Why not? My husband and I talked about this early on in our marriage but never had really strong opinions about it one way or the other until our first child was diagnosed with developmental delays when he was 3. We decided pretty much then that we would likely choose to homeschool at least him since it seemed that a 1:1 focus would give him the strongest possible start academically. This is our seond year now and we reserve the right to change our minds, but so far it's going well and he is thriving. Although our initial motivation had nothing to do with Christian vs. secular education,  we have since become very convinced that as Christians it is our duty to set the highest possible standards for our children with regard to values and integrity. No one can do this for our children as well as we can.

I do, indeed, have a husband. He began taking seminary classes in the fall of 2007 at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in addition to working a full-time job. As you can imagine, since I'm home with my 3 boys all day, every day, most of what I end up writing about on the blog has something to do with them or what *they* say. I'm trying to get better about this but that's where I'm at right now.

YOU SURE SEEM TO TALK A LOT ABOUT SCRAPGIRLS. WHAT GIVES?

ScrapGirls happened to be one of the first sites I found when I found out about digital scrapbooking. I fell in love with Thao Cosgrove's layouts and immediately started trying to scraplift her in an effort to learn. I started poking around the bulletin boards there, making friends, and was encouraged to apply for a position on the layout design team. I was offered a spot, enthusiastically accepted, and began what would be a 3-month frenzy of scrapping, scrapping, scrapping, every single minute I could find in a day. Although I made the decision to quit the design team for personal reasons, I still shop at ScrapGirls as often as I can afford. When I have a longer block of time I like to catch up on some of the latest posts and "leave some love" in the gallery. It's an incredibly welcoming community with lots to offer a beginning scrapbooker (like I was in December of '06): I'll always have a soft spot for Ro and her team in my heart! There are plenty of great digiscrapping sites out there but I think ScrapGirls is the best!

UPDATE: I was offered a position on the product design team at ScrapGirls in January of 2008. The transformation is complete! :)