Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Today, We Share Our Work

Another thing I quickly learned about the digital world was that getting feedback was easy and, like blog comments, strangely addicting! Most of these encouraging people were perfect strangers who also loved the digital offshoot of the hobby, and left "love" for whatever I was brave enough to post in a gallery....(a gallery is often found in a store, though some digi sites are purely for sharing your completed pages....).

One word of advice....just as in life, you have to give love to get love in return....or at least you should. 

This is how I found Log Your Memory, a site dedicated to sharing layouts and inspiring others to use this hobby to preserve memories of everyday life. You have a pile of laundry to the ceiling…take a picture of it and write about why spending time with your family is the tradeoff you make for daily chores, or write about your family’s laundry routines. The idea being, one day, you may want to remember what it was like to live every regular day, not only the birthdays, holidays, and other big events of your life.

When it comes down to it, the everyday routines are what make up a life, and the big events are just frosting on the cake. If you are already a fan of or familiar with Ali Edwards, Cathy Zielske, and Stacy Julian, you know that this focus of the hobby has a great following. I always think of it this way, I’d love to know how my Grandma, who’s no longer with us, felt about my mom’s first day of kindergarten, or how she felt when she was learning to drive and crashed into the garage and never drove again, or what it was like for her growing up. She didn’t keep a journal, so I’ll never know these things, so I’m trying to leave some of these memories of my own for my kids, their kids and their grandchildren. Scrapping about everyday life is not only the good stuff, but also the bad, though I tend to keep those pages to myself right now.

Log Your Memory is run by Kristen Rutten, who I’m sure has figured out how to get 30 hours of stuff into a 24 hour day. Maybe even 31 hours. Her store offers a Logbook to keep track of those everyday happenings and weekly challenges and prompts to help you tell your story.

(I’m not compensated in any way by Kristen to advertise, but her site propelled my excitement with this hobby, and I think she’s done a great job of inspiring others as well).

The challenge early this year, Sweet Talk Challenge, gave us 13 different ways to tell our stories. The challenge may be over, but the methods are still a great way to start journaling. There are loads of other inspirations all over the site – hopefully, you’ll be inspired by something there like I was.

Other places you might want to share you work, and stores I frequent (though there are many, many others)

Scrapbookgraphics – my current favorite haunt
The Digi Chick – this is the store the designer I CT (creative team) for sells – she’s Laura Banasiak and she’s cool and fun, and can also cram 30 hours a day into 24
Sweet Shoppe Designs
DigiShopTalk
After 5 Designs
Gotta Pixel
The Lily Pad

Do you already have a favorite site? Share it here!!!

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