Stolen Moments: Spotlighting Cheryl

Hey all, Jewelle here again with a CTM spotlight! I'm excited to introduce you to one of our CTM who has been producing layouts for Amber for quite some time. Let's learn more about...

Cheryl

{aka gonewiththewind}

I am currently a stay-at-home mom with a previous career as a certified legal assistant. I’m married and have two children. I have always been interested in crafts, but as a new mother, that translated into traditional paper scrapbooking. I was a paper scrapbooker for 10 years, and have been designing digital layouts since August 2007. In addition to digital scrapbooking, I also enjoy reading, cross stitching, sketching and decorating my home.

How long have you been scrapping? Have you ever paper scrapped? When did you make the switch to digi and why? I started paper scrapping in 1996 when I was pregnant with my daughter. I’ve been digi scrapping since 8/07. I switched to digi after I followed a Jessica Sprague tutorial in PSE for making photo collages. I then found digital supplies online and I was hooked!

What do you feel is your strongest scrapping skill? Your weakest? I think my strongest scrapping skill is that I’m open to trying new things. My weakest is that sometimes I forget about my strength and get stuck doing the same type of layout for a while.

What advice would you give someone just starting out digi-scrapping? I would advise anyone who wanted to start digi scrapping to set aside time to learn. Find tutorials that are easy to read and follow and invest time in getting to know your program. Get involved in a digi community by posting in their forum and sharing your layouts in their gallery. Make friends. Don’t be afraid to ask those friends questions. The digi community is so friendly and there are lots of scrappers with great skills that are willing to share and help you out. Then never ever ever ever compare yourself to another scrapper. You are you, and you will be showing up in your scrapbook layouts, so those pages are going to be unique. Sure, you can copy trends or a favorite scrapper, but ultimately you need to know that your skills and heart are going onto each page.

Describe your scrapping "system"... What program do you use? Where do you start first - photos, papers, elements, journaling? Do you always have something in mind when you start, or do you let your creativity guide you? How long does it take you to complete a layout? I use PSE 5.0, the same editing software I started with ~ and I’m STILL learning how to use it. LOL Most often I start with a kit and then I pick the photo. But there are times when I’ve taken a photo I really love and I’ll start with it. If I’m inspired, a layout (without any extractions) takes about 30 minutes. If I’m working on a digi art journal page, then those take me much longer, mostly because I’m layering paint, doodles, and a variety of other elements and the page won’t get finished until it feels right. Those are the pages that I actually leave and come back to. If a layout isn’t working for me, it’s trashed and I start from the beginning as I don’t like to force things.

On average, how much time do you spend scrapping each week? I’m not admitting to anything! **giggle** I’d say maybe 20 hours scattered throughout the week?

Describe your perfect scrapping environment - coffee? soda? music? snacks? Quiet. And then some more quiet. Occasionally I’ll play solo piano music or Big Band music on Pandora or I’ll listen to the playlist on my blog. Most often I listen to music when I’m surfing the Internet or posting in forums. When I’m actually scrapping, I like quiet. And an ice cold Diet Pepsi over ice.

What's your favorite thing to do BESIDES scrapping? My next fave thing besides scrapping is reading. I read every day, and read about one book per week. I just recently rediscovered a love of sketching, but I tend to get lost for hours doing that.

What is one thing you would love to do, just so you could scrap it? Ride in a hot air balloon.

Who inspires you in the scrapping community? Any person or site in particular that you look to for inspiration? Honestly, at this particular time, I’m really inspired by paper scrappers. I like to go over to Two Peas and gaze at the gallery, paying close attention to shadows that are on a paper scrapped page to give me an idea about dimension on my digi scrapping papes. I have my paper scrapping background, and I really love to see how paper scrappers use paper. As a digi scrapper, I tend to pick one paper and load on the elements, but going through the galleries pushes me to try different things with paper. I have so many digi scrapping buddies that I look to continuously for inspiration, and I love looking at the Gallery Standouts Blog as well.

If you could have Amber create a kit just for you, what colors, theme, etc would it be and why? Given my recent journey into sketching again, I would love a B&W kit with various textures of white paper, pens with nibs, more modern sketching pens, clear rulers with black guides, twine and you gotta add some natural elements in there for me, too, ‘cause I gotta have flowers and leaves. LOL!

First Layout

The first layout I posted in an online gallery. I used a freebie from Krystal Hartley. I remember being particularly proud of my ability to recolor the word art. LOL