Great American Scrapbook Convention in Chantilly, VA

I attended the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Chantilly, VA this past weekend, June 24 & 25, 2010. I was able to attend as a customer on Friday and a vendor on Saturday. This was my first time attending and I was quite impressed. There were vendors from all over with tons of scrapbooking products, ideas, make & takes, and great samples on display. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos to share with you right now. I had to go out of town suddenly due to a death in the family and I left the camera at home.

The one thing I was on the hunt for was a t-shirt and I found 2. One says "friends don't let friends crop alone" (purchased from Scrap Happy - www.scraphappyohio.com) and the other "Scrapbook Girl" (purchased from www.ticklemepinkdesigns.com). I purchased 2 of each of them for myself and my sister. She and I try to get together once a month for a scrapbook weekend. Since she lives in NC and I live in VA we alternate houses. We spend most of the weekend in our pj's, take very few showers, and watch "chick-flicks" while we scrap all weekend long. It's great! We know we won't be able to do this forever, so we are making it a priority now.

The 2nd day I was there I was helping my upline, Kathy Aardema-Zunk, at her Close To My Heart booth. She has been a vendor at this show for (I believe) 7 or 8 years now. We had a great time and I really enjoyed sharing CTMH and demo-ing some of our best products. I also learned alot by watching her interact with others (she has been a consultant for 14 years now). I also got to see some of my current customers and workshop attendees. I even made some new friends and can't wait to see them at a workshop of mine soon.

That's just another reason I love being a consultant. You get to meet great people and make lasting friendships too. You should join my team - I only wish I had joined CTMH sooner.

My first blog post

Well, there is no time like the present is there. I've been trying to start a blog for well over 6 months now and something always seemed to get in the way. Well, here it is - finally!

I am so excited to begin sharing my love of scrapbooking and music with all of you. I plan to post artwork, ideas, kits, specials, and much more so be sure to check back often to see all of the latest and greatest.

To give you a little more background information about me, we'll start after college. I graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh, NC in 1998 with a degree in Music Education, Concentration in Voice. I didn't want to be a teacher right away so I moved to Florida to work for Walt Disney World. It was a great experience and I'm so glad I stepped out on faith to do it. After 3 years, numerous characters, and being home sick I decided to move back to NC and began teaching chorus and dance at North Johnston High School in Kenly, NC. It was challenging at first, but I had some great moments as well. I would travel to and from school 2 hours each day so when I received a call that a school 20 minutes from home was hiring I jumped on the opportunity.

I then began teaching at Fuquay-Varina High School in Fuquay-Varina, NC in January of 2004. My first semester was probably one of the hardest things I had done in my life up to that point. I shed tears almost daily because of the way that the students treated me. I managed to get through it and when I left I was shedding tears for a much different reason. I had established a very special relationship with my students and was sad to be leaving, but it was time to start a new stage of my life.

On September 30, 2006 I married my soulmate. We met on eHarmony, spoke on the phone for 3 weeks before meeting, dated for 2 months before going ring shopping, got engaged after only 4 months, and were married 8 months later.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I lived in North Carolina while he lived in Virginia. So dating for a year long distance was really hard. Looking back now I wish I would have kept track of how many times we traveled back and forth. (He used to know the exact mileage that he had traveled during that year.) So this is what brought me to Virginia. We decided to live in Virginia for various reasons, but I think overall this is where God had planned for us to begin our marriage. It's been necessary for us to be here for the past 4 1/2 years.

So I decided not to go back in to the public schools to teach, but rather to teach private lessons from home. Well, that took a while to get off the ground so I pursued other employment. I ended up working in the back office of a scrapbooking store, Memories Galore in Midlothian, VA, and the addiction was born. I had only been scrapbooking for over a year when I started working at Memories Galore and during my 2 years the addiction just grew and grew. On March 16, 2009 I went to work on a Monday morning only to be driving back home 30 minutes later after being told "my job was being eliminated". So after a few hours of tears, the realization that I could begin a home based business was born and here I am.

By the end of that week, I was a Close To My Heart Consultant and haven't looked back since. I've always been a firm believer in "everything happens for a reason" and this was just another one of those moments. So here I am 2 years later, a Manager with Close To My Heart, a private piano and voice teacher, and I get to do it all from home.