OSnapGonzo YouTube Giveaway

Hello All, today's post is a little different than what I usually post, but Sandy (osnapgonzo on youtube) is having a super generous giveaway (a selfie photo printer!!!) on her youtube channel and is graciously allowing those of us who love to watch her videos, but don't (yet) do our own videos post a response on our blogs. 

The prompt is to share a layout from when we first started scrapbooking, then a layout that represented a turning point in our style and what it was that prompted that change and then a layout of how we scrapbook today. I have shared many layouts from this last year on my blog and on Facebook, but this is the first time I have ever posted on, much less even photographed some of my early, early efforts.  I started scrapbooking as a young teenager. With no money of my own to spend on a lot of scrapbook supplies, re-using what I had was huge for me. I would cut apart bags, use regular colored printer paper, scrounge around the house for whatever I could find.  The layout from that period I am going to share is pretty much put together on a piece of purple printer paper, with the handles of a gift bag and stickers used for my embellishments. I had two pictures on the layout that I used regular tape to adhere to the page. I think this layout is a little over 10 years old, because it is from when I was still in high school.

I really had two really major influences that brought about change in my scrapbooking. 1) I got a job and suddenly had a little more money to spend on my hobby, but we were still newly married and paying off debt so I honestly still didn't spend very much, but I did splurge from a paper pack from Walmart here and there! :) My layouts were still very one dimensional at this point. I hadn't yet found YouTube and the wonderful world of embellishments, so my layouts were still quite simple! I did look at magazines and such, but I hadn't really made a significant change to my style of scrapbooking.

Which brings me to the thing that REALLY changed the way I scrapbook!!!! I found youtube for scrapbooking. I had watched youtube videos for a few years for card making, but early last year I took on the enormous project of organizing and scrapping my mother's entire collection of pictures (i'm talking her childhood, my dad's childhood and all of the pictures that had accumulated since their marriage and having kids!)  Needless to say that after about 30 layouts I was having some serious inspiration challenges. Since I already looked to youtube for inspiration in making cards, I looked up scrapbooking layouts and found Shimelle Laine! OH.MY.WORD…. That woman is an amazing teacher and scrapbooker!  Isn't she!?!?!?! She totally changed the way I scrapbook because she not only gave ideas for layouts but really got me thinking about the concepts of building layouts. Several months later after I had watched everything she'd created on YouTube I also found nicolejones911 and MercyTiara. Nicole and Tracy gave me the push confidence  to just go ahead and cut into those gorgeous papers I had been hoarding, hating the idea of accidentally wrecking a page and wasting it. Tracy (MercyTiara), Nicole and Shimelle really got me thinking about beginning to journal on my layouts as well. From their inspiration, I arrived where I am today with my scrapbooking!

Hope you enjoyed!!! And thanks Sandy for such a great giveaway!!!!