I have already posted a bit, but let me make a formal introduction!!!

[SinisterPink]

Hey There
My name is Sarah, and although I am not new to art, I am new to scrapbooking. I have been a working artist, *meaning people are silly enough to pay me for stuff* for nearly 13 years now. It started when I got married and realised that being a housewife was, when you got down to it......really boring.

So I cast about for things to do, first of all I went back to pen and ink, a medium I enjoyed very much when I was a young girl. Unfortunately I failed my art exams as I had no enthusiasm for drawing crumpled coke cans or rendering bars of chocolate with a bite taken out. On the other hand my tutor had no patience for my drawings of goblins, vampires, unicorns and dragons. So after school I didn’t pick up a pen again till I got older and needed to pass the time.

That led to teaching myself web design, until eventually I set about on digital medium with a trusty tablet and the three ring circus of my imagination as my guide. Funnily enough this took off and not only do I frequently paint digitally, I work with a variety of 3-D rendering programs, as well as for the past five years being heavily into photo manipulation...

So why scrapbooking, well I find at the grand age of 38 I now have a plethora of memories that I wish to preserve not just for me, but my family and my son. Some of these were sad memories, which I feel all the more need keeping.

My plans are to make small personal albums and books as presents using children’s board books, and also, hence why I am here, make a digital scrapbook that I can convert to PDF and have bound into a book.

Myself and my husband came to parenting late, it was a struggle, five and a half years of fertility treatment and IVF resulted in twins, one of which we sadly lost at 12 weeks. Then Jack was born, light of our life, until at four months he fell prey to meningitis. It was a rough time, and we all got through it thankfully. However we soon found that this was not without cost when Jack was diagnosed as Autistic just this year after many years of gruelling tests.

My son doesn’t speak, we don’t know if he ever will, however he IS very visual, and every day, every single thing he sees and does because he has a unique perspective, well it’s magical. This made me look into scrapbooking to preserve, and pin down these memories, and for something that maybe he can look back and and understand how very important he is to us, and how very much he is loved.

I start school next week, I always envisioned that I would when my son started school, I always thought it would be art. However life shows you the way sometimes and I found that my path is to work with children, so I am training to be a pre school teacher, with long sighted plans to be a play therapist for special needs children.

However art is still very much a part of my life, and I am hoping this community can take this special journey with me....

Also I have to say, I shamefully spent a ton in your shop today, but all the things are too nice natch!!!
Sarah