I was a paper scrapper and started trying digital scrapping maybe 5-6 years ago, i printed a couple of baby books of my daughter and a one year book of 2010 (that I printed in 2015) but they were definitely not anything fancy - i really didn't know what I was doing but the books are cute and the kids like looking at them
Then i joined SSD in 2016, i started to change my style joined in a lot of competitions, quite a few bingos and at the same time started keeping all my scrapped pages in folders of the year the photos were from. I quite quickly made the decision to scrap exclusively with SSD products and picked a few designers who match my style more just so my full albums are more cohesive
In 2017 i noticed that i was doing a lot of 2012 photos so i concentrated on those photos mainly as well as a bit of current stuff when it fit in with bingo challenges - i had a few black outs, built a nice kit collection and then went back and redid some of the earlier 2012 pages that i did before i decided what my style was.
Late 2017 i applied for my first CT and got a thanks but no thanks - i was really sad - i'm still sad tbh but have a c'est la vie attitude about it now - and i took a MASSIVE break from scrapbooking. I was really disheartened for ages because i realised i wasn't as good as i naively thought i was (i don't need sympathy on this bit i'm over it now and sympathy will just make me sad all over again lol)
Then a few months ago i went through a stage of getting heaps of photos of my girls - my little one is at a cute age - and i thought hey why not get back into scrapping. So i took stock of what I had, deleted the pages that i didn't like anymore and re-did a whole heap.
Then i thought about printing - now, when i printed my baby books, the 2010 album and my honeymoon album i went cheap - i picked a place that had a special on and went with it - the pages weren't good to start with but the printing made them too dark and cropped too much off the page - so i made great use of the other best part of SSD - the forum - and asked for recommendations for a good printer
Jak (i think that's her name) who is an Aussie recommended album works and aurian (i think that's her name) recommended Photobook worldwide - being confident that both would be good because the recommendations came from digital scrappers i went with the one with the best discount this month - and ordered from albumworks
All i can say is - OMG - totally blown away!!! THIS is why i scrap, the end result is just omg so so adorable i love love love it - i actually can't express how excited i am - all the kids love it even hubby was impressed
Thanks so much for whoever makes SSD happen, thanks so much designers, thanks so much CTs (i'm a shameless scraplifter from the samples pages on product listings) and thanks so much forum for giving me a place to get printing advice.
If anyone sees this and knows the people who run the show please pass on my thanks - i really really want you guys to know you actually change lives - i know it's only a "hobby" but this amazing book means a lot to me - my kids are growing so fast and now i have something tangible to look at while i reminisce and miss my mum years
I've probably blabbered too much i just want you all to know how awesome we customers think this place is
