Leap of Faith

 I took a leap of faith......

My husband has been my biggest supporter of the Dream Journals that I have been making now for about a year. He has tried to encourage me to show my books more and make them available for purchase. Well, we all think our work is good but to put it our there for others to see may not be what you might expect. When in California I was making scrapbooks for people who had seen some of my books and had asked to make one for them. That was fun and kept me busy. Then I got away from that and started making my books. Little ones in the beginning just for myself and alot of them for gifts.

Well when we moved to Clayton, NC, I continued to make my books, again for family or friends. The neighbors became interested and loved seeing my works. Being away from my scraping buddies left me with lots of days to myself to work more on my craft. I fell in love with my books. When I took time to look around I realized I had more books then I knew what to do with. So came my first leap of faith.

Again with my husbands persuasion I agreed to enter my items in a local craft fair. I worked on my books for about a month wanting to make sure I had enough of them to offer. I kept thinking to myself, "Why am I doing all this work. It may not be worth it". All I could think about was that I would end up with ALL these books what would I do with them? I thought, well I would have them for gifts, my girlfriends, family, birthdays, Christmas, whatever came along. I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat overwhelmed. It seemed to be something no one here had seen before. It was exciting! I sold just about all that I had taken with me that day along with a couple of special requests from people who had attended the show that day.

My girlfriend in CA has been a big help and a true friend. She also has encouraged me and has pushed me again. She has helped me get started on facebook and on Etsy to expose my books to a larger audience. So I will now be posting them on these two venues along with this blog. At the end of the day yesterday I sat down to check my emails and facebook. I was in awe! I had received so many comments on my work that I was not expecting. It was so nice to hear from so many people. Again I was overwhelmed with it all. I am now loading pictures on Etsy to show my books and offer them to all of you out there.

Last week I went to the North Carolina Fairgrounds to enter two of my works in the competition for the North Carolina State Fair which starts on Oct 11 thro Oct 21, 2012. Winning something isn't the important thing to me. It's meeting more people who do and like the things I do and like. I have met sooooo many wonderful people during this process. It has been scaring at times but putting myself out there has been so rewarding.

I told this story thinking there maybe someone out there like me who loves what you do and to let you know how rewarding it is to share it.

Haylee's Jean Book Update

My sweet granddaughter loved her "jean book" I made her. I sent it with her Papa who is visiting the kids in California right now. Her mother told me that she has been writing in it and adding a number of pictures of friends and of course her Papa. I hope to get pictures of it so I can see what she has done. I was told she has written a couple of letters to me in it. Can't wait to see it.