Grand Opening...My New Shop!!
(and some additional creative, scrappy goodness)

Well, I took the plunge. I decided to go for it. I opened an Etsy shop.

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with what I think is the perfect name for my shop. I knew I wanted my shop to revolve totally around things that can help people tell their stories. Homemade albums. Journals. Scrapbook stuff. Writing resources. So I came up with...My Story Designs.

I added my first items last night. These are some of the things you'll find there...




My shop description puts what I'm going to sell this way:

Every facet of your life…your story… is special. At My Story Designs, I’m dedicated to helping you treasure and preserve all of those moments through words and pictures. My Story Designs helps you capture all those moments…big and small…that make your story unique. Beautiful, handcrafted mini books, journals, photographs, scrapbook tags, holiday and vintage items (plus writing and scrapbooking resources) give you a voice to share your story.

I've got several other things I'm working on to add to the shop very soon (including my own, "naked," "assemble it yourself" kit designed around my "A Week in the Life" album that I'm almost finished with); and some designs to help us preserve our thankfulness during this time of year; and I want to get some Christmas items out there (since I'm totally In the Mood now and have bought maybe 20 Christmas gifts already; yay!)

The challenge, obviously, will be marketing my items. But I've got some ideas. And we'll see how it goes.

So, please GO and CHECK OUT my shop. And check back often. (I will post updates here on my blog, so you'll know when there's something new there.) And let others who like this sort of stuff know about my shop. Etsy is extremely cool and is filled with all sorts of great stuff. (Like so much cool stuff that you can spend hours and hours wandering around from shop to shop!) And shopping there is easy; you just sign up with a username and you can order away (using Paypal, but also with checks at a lot of places).

(Also....check out my sister-in-law Danielle's Etsy shop. She has the most beautiful bookmarks at her Reading Art shop; they would make awesome stocking stuffers for that person who loves to read!)

Now, can I share my latest project that I just finished up?

I completed my two albums about our experience with Delaney's softball World Series this past Summer. (Since it's November, I figured it was almost time to get it done!) One is a small little book just for Delaney...




And the other is a larger book for the entire family. For us to remember all the fun we had on the trip.

Since I had SO many photos from the trip, I needed to make it as easy as possible to assemble. So, I decided to actually alter a regular photo album and make it sort of "scrapbook-ey" with extra embellishments and room for journaling. I just love how it turned out!

Here are some of its inside pages...












This a really great "easy and friendly" way to do a scrapbook. If you aren't a scrapbooker, but kinda want to test out your creativity, this sort of technique might really work for you. I think it would be really great for a Christmas album, don't you?

(And it really adheres to my whole idea of why I scrapbook anyway. To get my story down!)

So...thanks for indulging my creative, crafty side this morning.

And thanks for checking out my Etsy shop! (Btw, I also have listed on my shop that I am able to do custom work as well. If you ever know of anyone who'd like a customized scrapbook or journal or anything in that area, I can help them out!) (Oh, and another btw...you can click on my shop anytime from those cool new buttons on my sidebar there to the right.)

Have a WONDERFUL Wednesday!!