I've decided to come back to my blog once again. And once again this is taking place in September.

I know it is generally thought that January is the month of new beginnings and fresh starts, but it seems that for me September fills that role. Maybe it is from my days as a classroom teacher and September was always the beginning of a new group of students and often a new room to set up. Or perhaps it is because now September is when my own children are starting a new school year and after 3 months of not having any time alone I'm suddenly given time to ponder my own projects. Whatever the reason, this seems to be the season that brings me back to this little blog.

As I was looking through the blog today trying to decide if I really wanted to continue it or just delete it, I was reminded of all of the wonderful people I've interacted with and been inspired by over the years. Many of my links were outdated and more than a few are no longer in use. So as I visited each of these sites in order to update my blog, some that I hadn't seen in over 5 years, I remembered what brought me to blogging and scrapbooking/stamping in the first place. This community is amazing not just in talent but also and very importantly in encouraging one another. I originally started out with scrapbooking back in 1996 because I wanted to make a scrapbook of college life. In 2000 I started working and teaching classes at a little scrapbook store on the weekends or during breaks when I wasn't teaching in my middle school classroom. This is where I first became intrigued with using stamping in my scrapbooks. a couple years later when my first daughter was born I stamped and sent out my first actual cards - her birth announcements. I was hooked! I loved the immediate satisfaction I could get from cardmaking and soon after that I became involved with The Angel Company. When my second daughter came along in 2005 I realized I really couldn't continue with traditional scrapbooking because I often left a page in progress on my desk for days as I could only grab a few minutes at a time to work on it, And now with a toddler and a newborn this was risky and meant many ruined pages. Thus began my love affair with digi-scrapbooking. With each new adventure I met new friends on forums or at conventions that shared the same creative passion I had. They were there to give me feedback on my creations as well as to provide a listening ear when I had just had a rough mommy day. Until I no longer made time for them or creating. Even though I've had this blog since July 2006, I've not really been active on it or in anything crafty since 2010. This past spring though, as I was sorting out my craft room to decide what should be trashed, what could be donated to schools, and what I might be able to sell, my oldest became interested in cardmaking. Here just as I was going to get rid of everything and move on, she was wanting to join me in creating! She helped me remember what I loved about being creative, what my soul had been missing over the past 6 years.

Now we create together and so I've decided to once again open up this blog to share our creations. We have plans to work through a few weekly challenges to get us back in a groove and hopefully will even upload a few YouTube videos since this is one area we both enjoy gaining inspirations from. Over the past few months we've gotten lots of new goodies from My Favorite Things, Simon Says Stamp, Lawn Fawn, and a few newer companies that I'm just starting to learn about. I've got so many ideas and I can't wait to share them.