As a mom of a son going off to college out of town, I decided to teach myself computer skills, so we could communicate by email and instant messenger and so my son and his friends wouldn't think I was completely 'out-of-it'. About the same time, we took a trip to Israel and I took a ton of photos. It occurred to me that there might be a need for scrapbooking designs for somewhat obscure themes if I could reach a broad audience. I could also see a need for people living in remote areas, like overseas military families, and overseas missionaries to be able to access scrapbooking supplies without importing them or paying duty. You can see many of my own scanned Israel layouts on ScrapbookScrapbook.com .

I had to experiment and do a good bit of searching to come up with a way to accomplish this, plus teaching myself the skills necessary to make it work. It was earlier days of the Internet when there was more "community comradely" and I was able to get some free help from kind souls that I'd never met through Usenet and Newsgroups.

After I made my first few sets, I began to get email from all sorts of people requesting the popular themes such as Easter & Christmas. Many of these people did live in remote areas, but also some were homebound due to illness or injury. 

Now as scrapbooking has begun to spread to European countries, Australia/NZ & Africa, I have many overseas customers. Handmade cardmaking, as is tea bag folding, is popular in some European countries, so now ScrapbookScrapbook.com has many customers who use my backgrounds for cards & rubberstamping.

I receive so many wonderful letters thanking me and that alone has makes the effort worth it--like little rays of sunshine that come to me almost every day. The specialized sets, like the Asian Designs for people who have adopted children from Asian countries have definitely filled a need. I still see the need for many more specialized sets, like one for people who have lost a baby to Sudden Infant Death syndrome, and hope to be able to continue adding printable designs.

I have always been a 'stay at home' mom but my college degree was in Engineering Technology with a minor in Art, so I have always enjoyed the marriage of the two fields. ScrapbookScrapbook.com is a perfect vehicle for my artistic skills and keeps my brain cells exercised by having to constantly learn new concepts to keep my site current, functioning and ranking high in the search engines.

You can see a bunch more photos of  my friend Angie Lewis and me at the Great American Scrapbook Convention.

See my Mosaic Tile Design Site Here.

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