Hi. I’m Maggie Travis, a first time scrap booker. As I helped my friend, Linda Gransby, organize supplies for her Scrapbox kits, I fell in love with the papers and embellishments. I asked if I could have a go. I’d see if I could create a story without scrapbooking experience.
Retired since 2012, my husband and I base ourselves in Thailand. Our year is spent travelling to Malaysia, UK, and the US to stay with family and friends. In fact, the friends became family. On top of that we also visit places we’ve never been before or to which we want to return, i.e. Indonesia and Vietnam.
I love watercolour painting, photography, planning trips, web-surfing hotel and travel sites and boarding planes, trains and boats. At the age of 71, I protect my mobility with regular yoga practice and daily walking. I’m never too old to try something new.
The kit with the weekly planner layouts made the process easy for doing the layouts and the card stock and embellishments enhance each other. The skills for using the cutters, the double sided tape roller, and placing the pictures against each other took some practice.
I made the classic first time scrapbooking mistake -- getting bogged down and spending too much time fiddling with this and that. I needed to just make a decision and stay with it. After I gained confidence, I really enjoyed the process. I kept my journaling ideas in mind when I selected my pictures and laid them out. The process brought back so many memories of the events themselves. As I finally laid out these completed first pages, I’m really pleased with the outcomes.
For first timers, I highly recommended reading Linda’s ‘Beginners Guide to Scrapbooking’ and her weekly sketch articles.
Most importantly, book a craft retreat with her (editor: click here for more info). You’ll learn so much just by watching others, following their advice and getting started creating your stories with pictures and journaling. The comradery while creating your own memory book is an invaluable experience.