Well, hopefully my website will be up soon, so I thought I might wanna explain what scrappin’4 you is all about.  Scrappin’ is run by a single designer, me, Christine Chase.  My goal is to focus on small, quality, giftable orders.  Perhaps you would like a single, special portrait embellished before you frame it as a gift for someone special.  Or perhaps you would like a mini-scrapbook of 10 to 12 pictures or less.  We will sit down and talk out all the important details, then I will scrap your page(s) and get them back to you via mail or in person, if you happen to live in Central Maine.    I have a knack for taking  cardstock, hand-crafted embellishments and special treatments and giving you the nicest pages. Using inexpensive supplies, making it affordable for you to pay tribute to your special memories.  Spend your money on MAKING memories  I’ll make them last. 

Remember, if it’s worth snappin’, it’s worth Scrappin’.

          I QUIT!!!!!  Suddenly, it’s as if I have walked into a hat store and found the perfect one for me.  The only problem is that it’s a premium.  You know, those things that a company offers for free, but only if you buy 6 other things that you don’t really want just because they are trying to unload an item that nobody else wanted either.  I want to scrapbook.  I know, I have told you all of this  before.  I have lost track of all of the different hats I have tried on in order to find the 6 that I can live with just to gain that perfect untouchable cap in the store window.  You know the one, you have all seen someone else wearing it many times in your lives, it’s the slight and tasteful one with just the tiniest little feather in it.  Well, today I made up  my mind that just because I have to BUY the 6  other hats doesn’t mean I have to KEEP them.  There are others who are much better suited for the hats that just don’t fit me, and they can have them, if that’s what it takes to get the PERFECT one for me.

Remember, if it’s worth snappin, it’s worth scrappin.

     “One possible mission statement definition is a written declaration of purpose affirming the highest priorities of an organization or individual.”  Huh?  Mission, mission, mission.  I just don’t like that word.  It makes me feel like my customers are some kind of cause.  I have read a few mission statements.  Most of them sound so sophisticated.  I can be as sophisticated as the next gal.  I can put out a sophisticated scrapbook page, or a funny one, whatever I am called on to do.

     It all boils down to “why?”  Why do I want to do this?  Why scrappin’4you?  Why not something else?  The answer is as short as the question.  JOY.  It is as simple as that.  Joy for myself in just simply being more, more than a useless waste of skin, bones and air.  Joy because scrappin’4you is about joy.  A tribute to Joy itself.  Bringing Joy to another person just triples the satisfaction.  In this economy, Joy is  the MOST tragic sacrifice.  I need to do this….you need to do this.  Go out there and look for Joy, whatever it means to you.  Pay tribute to it.  Take a picture.  It is a rare and priceless gift. 

Remember, if it’s worth snappin’, it’s worth scrappin’.

     Well, I am sitting here at 1:30 in the morning, unable to sleep.  I finally gave up and decided to give you the blog that I have been promising you for 2 days now.  Forgive me, but with all the exciting things going on right now, it is really hard to pick one, sometimes.  And then there was the little issue of the computer throwing a tantrum, “There, let’s see you do this without me.”  Apparently, it is not nearly as excited as I am about being constantly awake.  Both the computer and I have been to bed once tonite, but my mind just couldn’t stop racing, though, my body has been trying desperately to go on vacation for the last 2 days.  Of course, my computer (however reluctantly) has been my constant companion.  Needless to say, when I found myself sitting in the dark, I called upon my faithful friend and she responded, begrudgingly, honest.  You know, the truth is, my thinking process has shorted out several times through this whole process.  I know I had intended to tell you about all the great people that have talked me through this.  I know I have intended to tell you about the few finishing touches I have put on this thing that I was hoping to be able to call a business.  Apparently, scrappin’4you has been officially dubbed a “profitable hobby”.  Um, no…not yet. LOL.  After having given up on both the CARREER CENTER and SCORE for wanting to turn me into the next OPRAH, the son of a friend of mine, named Owen, suggested I try Women, Work, and Community.  Well, I looked them up online and found out that they could TEACH me about all these things like a business plan…and how to figure out how to price things.  Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.  So, I called them.  Just so happened, they were giving a class on the basics of self-employment 2 days later.  OH, BOY!!  I’ll show all those other people whom I had felt had done nothing but set me up  for failure.  So I went in and listened to them talk about sole proprietorship…which i breifly recall hearing something about many, many eons ago in high school…and something about how economy, sociology, and ecology and a bunch of other things effect the market.  And then, guess what!!  Another pile of paperwork, including…no please…don’t.  Yup!  So looked at it.  It wanted all this mumbo jumbo about my MISSION for mybusiness…and how many millions of dollars I want to be making in a year.  Plus she wanted all this other stuff done…INVENTORY…well, let me just put it this way,  if someone out there decided to call me while I am in the middle of writing this blog,  I am pretty sure that I would be able to finish this blog and still come up with something by morning.  Oh, wait.  I forget, I have an actual office now.  Maybe it would take til noon.  LOL.  Apparently, there are spreadsheets you can create in this program called EXCEL that will help you do things like….balance sheets and inventory sheets.  Ok, so I snagged a copy of MICROSOFT OFFICE….now what?   Sooooo, I looked into insurance,  don’t need it yet.  A permit, not unless I suddenly create a traffic jam.  I told the guy at the town office that I would get back to him. :P  I got myself a little flash drive and went on to my next Photoshop class.  Just wait til’ I show you all the things I have been learning.  Well, I went back to Women, Work, and Community today with nothing but a balance sheet in hand explaining exactly why I am NOT borrowing money.  Then she sits me in front of the computer and starts chiming out all these fictitious expenses and starts explaining to me why I need to charge at least $30 a page for my work.  On the one hand she tells me what we have here is nothing more than a hobby.  On the other hand, maybe pretty soon I will have a company jet I can use for a vacation in…oh say,  Greece, or Turkey, or India….I have always wanted to go there.  So let me tell you, breifly, what I have left to do.  NOTHING…oh sure there are these pesky little things like building on this website…which I think will stay right here.  There’s,  picking up a couple pointers about EXCEL.  Psst, hello, anybody out there wanna give me a hand…how bout some good old fashion bartering.  There is that pesky little thing called the MISSION STATEMENT.  Guys, it’s 2:30.  The mission statement is gonna have to wait til next time.  Go make some memories.

     So much has happened in such a short time that I don’t even know if I can remember it all, and at the same time I wonder if I have it all covered.  Once I decided what I wanted to do I had to begin learning how get it done.  Not the scrappin’, I can do that “in my sleep”.  The business.  Where do I start?  Turn to my facebook friends of course.  So I put the word out that I was thinking of doing scrapbooking for people who love it but who don’t have the time or the money to do it themselves.  Well, the IDEA has  been a hit from the beginning.  “OOO.  I have work for you!!!!!”  I hear time and time again.  So EVERYBODY jumps on and helps me walk through the steps.  My husband was going through the local CAREER CENTER so I followed him there.  Well, their outlook is to push people on to higher education.  Go to college to learn to do collages for a living?  Nope, that’s not what I am looking for…first because I would have to figure out what the heck X’s and Y’s have to do with adding and subtracting.  Second, because unlike highschool  now I am paying to take a bunch of required classes that have nothing to do with what I want.  Don’t get me wrong…I am a firm believer in learning “all the knowledge of the universe”.  But paying for it?  Isn’t what the “information super-highway” is all about?  I was promptly sent to the local business growth council.  Very quickly I was assured that I was in the right place and that it was THEIR JOB to see me succeed.  I was handed a pile of brochures and told….”write your MISSION STATEMENT and we will refer you to SCORE”.  Write WHAT?  To WHO?  A week later I was in the SCORE office.  Hands were shaken and another pile of catalogs, brochures and hand outs landed in my lap.  This time I was told to write a BUSINESS PLAN!  Huh?  Hello, guys?  I don’t need to borrow money…I have everything I need.  I don’t need a college education.  I need a picture to scrap.  Now if I wanna be legal…well..I need to keep books, register my business, get a tax #….little things like this.  Don’t you guys have classes for this?  “Call me when you get your plan written.”  So once again I turned to my friends.   “Hey everybody, I need a name for my business.”  The suggestions started rolling in.  The “final answer” is a variation of an idea that my friend Greg gave me.  Greg, btw, has his own photography  business in Idaho.  Hmmm,  someone who has been through the “birthing” chaos already.  The light goes on…I know many people who have successfully started and ran a business without a major “business plan” to begin with.   This is where the launching of scrappin’ for you really becomes a collaboration of some pretty terrific minds and hearts. Not the least of whom, is my friend Suzie.  She has been my advisor, my motivator, my “wings”, my mentor.  I haven’t made my first dime and I am talking as though it has taken me years to get where I am today.  It has.  Finally, I am me.  ‘I like me, I really like me’.  I hope you will too.    Tomorrow the story of sojourn to fullfillment and independence comes to real time.  I will fill you in on the final details and emotions I am working through as my “idea” becomes a dream, becomes a reality.

     So, having made up my mind to have complete control and freedom of my career, it wasn’t difficult to see what would be my best career choice.  In this tiny little apartment, and quickly getting smaller and smaller with all the paraphernalia that goes with the recreational interests of 3 people….it was either sell all my scrapbooking supplies that were stacked to the ceiling on 2 walls in the kitchen or…put them to work for me.  Scrapbooking for a living, not realistic you say?  Well, follow me,  I don’t need to provide for my family, that’s being handled adequately, at least from our contented point of view.  As I said in my last blog, all my life I have let anything and anyone define me, while I have always seen myself in a much different light than the one that I have exposed to the world.  In short, I have “hidden my light under a basket”.  I am the kind of person that loves to learn and loves to do.  I have always said  “Those who can, do.  Those who can’t, read about those who can.”  It is time to live up to my own expectations and image of myself.  So, it’s not about money.  It’s about something, anything that gives my life substance…with my health, in my world, and the people in it, just as it is.  It’s about contentment, contentment without complacency.  With that sentiment in mind,  it has occurred to me, that in this economy…how many women who once had the luxury of time and energies to pour into paying homage to the special people, places, pets and events in their lives…now find themselves having to go to work.  If you are such a person, or anyone who appreciates that if it’s a memory worth making, it’s a memory worth lasting, then scrappin4you is here to help.  The water is broke and the pains are 2 minutes apart.  For anyone who has never endured the arduous task of birthing a business….let me tell you about the journey…tomorrow…

Me, Blogging?  Until a couple of hours ago I had no idea what a blog is.  So, why, at 9 P.M. on a Saturday night, am I sitting here at the computer trying to master the art of fine blogging?  Well, you see it’s like this…I have limitations.  Some were set upon me from birth, some by life and circumstance, some by the well-meaning people that I have chosen to surround me.  Finding myself with nearly 2/3 of my life behind me, it occurs to me that if I am ever going to get the chance to be the “me”  that I truly am…well, then, I best get to it and take charge.  No longer can I look at myself through the eyes of others who have always seen ME as “half empty”.  No longer can I look at the small town in which I live and forget that there is a great big world of opportunity way beyond the town line.  No longer can I let my failing health force me into my “rockin years” long before my time.

Recent circumstances have pushed my husband to reinvent himself in his career aspirations.  I thought it was about time I invented me.  Physical limitations have prevented me from working outside the home for the last 17 years.  Physical limitations and perhaps a lack of creativity.  I have given thought to several careers in which I know I might excel, an interior designer, a professional organizer, or a buyer for a department store.   After much soul searching I have come to the conclusion that ,with my failing health, I really need to have control over my employment, hence, working from home.  This is the thought process that led me to start my own “business”, Scrappin’ 4 You…which I will expound on in my next blog.

S