New Year, New Focus

So it's been awhile since there's been an update here. Since I've made some changes in my creative life, it seemed like today would be a good time to rectify that.

Today was my last day as a Trixie Scraps Star; it was a difficult decision to make, but it was one whose time had come. I had a lot of fun on that Creative Team and learned a lot... teaching myself new ways of getting the most out of Photoshop Elements that became my Masters Monday tutorials helped me stretch my skills. I'm seriously considering a plan to continue posting tutorials twice a month, maybe on this blog or maybe starting a new blog just for that. After all, I'm always going to be figuring out new things to make my scrapbook layouts special, so why not?

Another one of the good things that came from my time as a Trixie Scraps Star is that I've found a new digiscrapping home on the Web at Gingerscraps. Back in June 2013 GS was my assigned store gallery for commenting on layouts made with Trixie products and I quickly found that I like the community there a LOT! And I really love the challenges. There are a lot of them, with something for everyone. Once I got my feet wet with the challenges, I did a speed scrap and found the chat room to be a lot of fun, especially the Friday Night Owl chat where the topic of conversation is completely unpredictable and never boring! (The fact that the hostess usually has an exclusive freebie for us is strictly secondary.)

Back on a Friday night in November, I exchanged some chatter with another GS lover, Melissa Melanson-Dawes. Melissa made templates for some of the challenges and as chat gifts; she asked me if I'd be interested in testing some of her templates to make sure they worked and the layouts made with them would look good and I of course said, "YES!" Today Melissa opened her own shop at GS, Lissykay Designs, and I'm one of her Creative Team members. Her templates are pretty sweet! The layout above was made with one of her templates. Here are a couple more:

But if that wasn't awesome enough, my connection with Melissa has led me down yet another new path. When she asked all of us template testers if we'd be willing to become the foundation for her CT, she told us she had no problem with using her templates for any other CT requirements we might have. That was the same day that I let Trixie know I was resigning, so I replied that I wasn't currently on another CT but it was good to know. Next thing I know she was asking me if she could pass on my name to one of the GS designers she herself CT's for. And that's how I came to be a member of the Created by Jill Scraps CT! I'm going to create word art with each of her new kits, as well as layouts. Jill Walls also has a shop at goDigitalScrapbooking and has a stake at DigiShopTalk too. The last week has been a blur of creativity for both these ladies' CTs and I have some wonderful work to show for it. (At least I think it's wonderful!)

I hope to be much more diligent about updating and keeping current. But I know I've said that before. We'll see how well I do...