A few Studio J layouts to share

Over the last few weeks I have been busy making a few layouts of my family. My sister from German sent me this treasure trove of old pictures after my mother passed away. Many of the pictures cannot go into a regular scrapbook, first of all she want the pictures back, second they are damaged (due to a fire that destroyed our home many years ago). The best thing I could do was to scan them. Studio J is a great forum for me to put my history together at least in a little way. Share a little bit of where I come from. My mother was a very strong woman. She was born into a farmer's family with 7 other siblings. Her mom died when she was only a young girl of cancer. She never really knew her mom. As was custom, her father remarried shortly thereafter to help take care of the family. But tragedy struck again and her father passed away as well. The stepmother did not want to keep all the kids - so the children were spread all over to relatives. My mother ended up with a great aunt. She loved her to her dying days, I loved hearing stories from her. She also was the one who told my mother that one day she would find the right church. In 1957 the missionaries from the LDS taught my mother and she knew that is what my mother was waiting for. Yes, my mother was a strong woman of faith and passed it on to me. I just always hope I will be able to pass that faith and strength on to my children.  Thank you mother.

Soon I will be able to work on more layouts of the rest of my family - I have lots of pictures of my father and my siblings. My father has his own set of history! You can see his grandfather up above in his "Kaiser uniform". We still had the spiked helmet when I was young. Unfortunately, we lost many of those memorabilia in our house fire.

Well, be watching for my next sharing of my pictures ... :)

It's my Anniversary!

Yes, it's been 19 years now that I signed with Close to my Heart. Back then, when I signed up as a consultant, all I was looking for was source I could make some money on the side while staying home with my kids. At the time I had a full time job, but I had to put both of my small children into daycare - not good. At night I barely had tome to get them ready for bed, read them a bedtime story, cuddle with them, pray with them and that was it - that was not good! So, on faith, I quite my job. We were ready to buy a new home, we really needed my income, my husband did not have a job that really made enough to pay for the home at the time, nor did he have the health care - I did. Yet, I knew I needed to quit my job to stay home with my children. Like, I said, after many prayers I knew it was the right thing to do - I quit my job. I found Close to my Heart right after and another job I could do from home. My husband also found a job, that paid better and had healthcare! Yes, prayer works.

When I first signed up as a consultant my husband was not sure, people would really buy stamps. Mind you, we still sold wood mounted stamps at the time. After he saw, how much I sold after the first month, I had him convinced - ha! Yes, I did well. However, I gained so much more than just money over the years. So many times I would walk into a home with guests or a hostess and I would be told - I cannot create - and they would leave saying - I can't believe I did this!

I was able to empower people! For me that was actually one the most important compensations of all.

Over the years, I had to put my business on hold many times, because of our family situations, with my husband in the military or traveling for the government. He was gone more than home. But I never went inactive with my business. I was always able to keep customers, always able to stay in touch. So, here is a great thank you to those of you who have stuck with me over the years. It is nice to not only call you "customer", but a friend.

Hopefully, I will see you again at my next Open House, so we can play again with some of our new toys!

As a little token - everybody who places an order this month will get a little gift from me and your name will go into a drawing for a free stamp set!