It was March 2008 while at a small Book Fair in Victoria that I met Barbara Ashcroft, a Canadian scrapbooking consultant with Heritage Makers. She lives in Qualicum Beach, BC and teaches people how to use this remarkable system. The Heritage Makers system blew me away and by the end of the weekend I had signed as a consultant in readiness for my retirement … I think I was rushing it a mite! I’m no longer a consultant but still use the system for special projects. Here is a link to my latest scrapbook featuring photos and family history gleaned from a trip I took back to my Australian Roots in 2010. I had to squeeze too much onto some of the pages as you pay by the page with any of these books.

However, as in the rest of my life, everything had a purpose and this not only introduced me to modern digital scrapbooking, I have since made several beautiful books featuring my family using my photos and this system. This is the one system I have used that closely resembles old fashioned cut and paste methods (which I never got into because it was so time consuming.)

When I turned 65 in 2010, I decided I needed to take a break from my usual rat race, after all, everyone was retiring why shouldn’t I?!  So, I began scrapbooking in earnest and couldn’t escape it’s clutches for several months. In that time, I managed to turn many hundreds of my treasured family photos into numerous, mainly hardcover, high quality scrapbooks, with no extreme expense or effort using several different online companies. I found easy programs and more involved, but still quite easy programs. Digital scrapping was catching on and every online photo company seemed to have their own scrapbooking program. The features were improving and I was in 7th Heaven! They keep getting better and better and the competition is causing these companies to compete for the latest fabulous features. I love it and so do countless millions of others now using these programs worldwide, thanks to the internet.

I now have 7 scrapbooks completed and get rave comments whenever I show them. I have scanned in hundreds of old (pre-digital photos) and still have only just begun to make a dent in my photo collection! Most of these programs are online so they archive your photos (read the fine print in their Policy) and don’t use very much of your HD memory.

I love it and it’s a great stress releaser but, as with any hobby, it’s too easy to become addicted and forget I have other important things to do … like editing my husband’s next historical novel!