I'm Fairly Green

I hope that those following this aren't anticipating pictures of mind-blowing scrapbooking layouts and ideas. I have been scrapbooking for almost a year to the day and I must admit that my skills are lacking in many areas.
I recently looked through my first every album and found the very first page I ever scrapbooked.

When comparing this to my most recent page (which I completed last night when I should have been studying for a Midterm) there are many marked improvements! I credit this first to my sisters and secondly to Scrapbookers Bliss.

My sisters and I until very recently would meet a few times a week and scrapbook in our mother's basement. Now this is no ordinary basement. It came to be referred to as "Scrapbook Central". Now how to describe it... I suppose "Unhinged Paper Pandemonium" would suffice. Quick, name your favorite scrapbooking item...We have 10!

Unfortunatley my mother required use of the long-armed quilting machine table upon which we were set up. She is currently in the process of setting up a new area in the basement for us but in the mean time I decided pack up and move my scrapping stuff elsewhere. After some discussion (read: nagging) I was able to convince Kye (my Fiance) to give up use of the spare room for me to set up a scrapbooking room! Or, more descriptively, scrapbooking "space". We live in the top floor of a house and we are running low on space. The spare room currently functions as a scrapbooking area, storage for wedding supplies, grooming supplies (including 2 dog kennels and enough shampoo to wash 3 elephants), my closet which spans an entire wall, Milo's bed and our pantry. I love it all the same though.

As much as I miss the company of my sisters and their advice ("Which damn ribbon matches?? I can't decide!!") it is nice to not have to travel 45 minutes to my paren'ts house when I feel like scrapping (which is daily).

But, I digress. This will happen often. I also owe my improvements to a store by the name of Scrapbooker's Bliss located near Mount Royal University in Calgary. I came across this little store after finding a $5 off coupon in a coupon book. Of course being the savvy shopper I am, I had to check them out. Up until this point I had been relying on Scrapbooker's Paradise, the dollar store and Micheal's for my scrapbooking supplies. I was pleasantly surprised by the incredibly friendly service and affordable prices they had! Not only that, but they have a monthly page contest that my sisters and I started participating in. The winner gets a $25 gift card but the bragging rights are infinitly more important. I have participated for maybe 5 months now and my sisters got on board soon afterwards. They sell $5 mystery kits, each containing identical items. Each contestant can use their own layout, pictures and other materials but it is required that you use at least a piece of each of the items provided. This causes one to venture quite far out of their comfort zone. They usually post the winner on their blog page so watch out for my name! None of "the sisters" as we have come to be known, have won a contest yet. Wish us luck on the october page. Here is the link for the April contest we participated in.