10 Questions with Jennifer McGuire

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me , "Who's your favorite scrapbooker now?" As if it changed so often... Ahem! Well, it started off with Rebecca Sower (met her and took her classes) and then it morphed into Heidi Swapp (met her and took her classes). It didn't take long for me to take notice of Jennifer McGuire (Jennifer Ditz at the time). You may have noticed that I didn't say that I've met her. Well, that's because I haven't, not yet. But, I feel like I get to take mini classes from her in my mailbox each month.

Jennifer writes monthly articles for Creating Keepsakes Magazine where she answers the common question of paper crafters, "What do I do with this?" She also gives video tutorials on her blog. Although I haven't met her, I had the fabulous opportunity to interview her. She IS as sweet and humble as she seems even though she definitely has reason to brag. She's an author, page designer, and stamper and she even has her own way of "giving back" to the industry. How can she not be one of your favorite scrapbookers?

1. How did you get started?
   
   When I started dating my husband, I was inspired by his passion for his hobby. He encouraged me to try some new things in search of my own hobby. I started volunteering with the high school youth group at my church and loved it. After a mission trip with them, I created a scrapbook. It was all over then! :) Within a month, I went to my first crop where people told me about this contest that a magazine did. I won CK's Hall of Fame and then got deeply involved in the industry, making great friends. These same friends helped me meet up with the owner of Autumn Leaves who asked me to be involved in his book program. Within less than a year from starting the hobby, I was able to leave my job as an engineer to pursue a job in scrapbooking.
   
   
2. Where are you today?
   
   I do a few things in the industry. I work for Hero Arts Rubber stamps as an artist. I do sample work, give input on stamp design, teach and do general consulting. I love the company - I can't begin to tell you how amazing they are. We just started a great blog there, too. I am also a contributing writer for Creating Keepsakes. I do a monthly article in their magazine and two online articles on www.creatingkeepsakes.com per month. It is a lot of fun! In June of 2007, my book, 101 Things to Do with Your Scrapbook Supplies was released. I am also on the design team for Two Peas. I used to travel and teach all over the world. Now I stay home with the kids and teach at local stores. For years I contributed a lot to Autumn Leaves' Design With Book series. Although I don't do much for the books anymore (I ran out of juice :), I still love working with them on occasion.
   
   
3. How would you describe your book 101 Things to Do With Your Scrapbook Supplies?
   
   TONS OF IDEAS! Really... there is SO much squeezed in that book. And thankfully they let me have some fabulous designers contribute. These girls came up with amazing stuff - so many ideas!!!
   
   
4. What is your goal for this year? Any more books in the works?
   
   My goal this year is to give back. I feel that I have gotten so much from this industry... it is time for me to do the same. I started my blog, Jennifer McGuire, Ink, that is strictly about stamping and scrapbooking. Here, I like to giveaway lots of RAKs and hope to launch a big "give back" campaign sometime soon. No book anytime soon. I really love what I am doing now and I want to enjoy this.
   
   
5. What is your typical creating process?
   
   I like to search through photos to find a handful of favorites. When doing this, something always inspires me for a theme. I print the photos and draw a sketch, and then the fun begins!
   
   
6. Any tips you could share with us?
   
   My favorite tip is to use photo enlargements and then to support the large photos with many little ones. I also recommend not putting too many embellishments and such around the photos - it just takes focus away from what matter most.
   
   
7. How has your approach to creating changed?
   
   I used to do single-photo layouts a lot where I just focused on a favorite photo and talked about the event. But now I like to gather lots of photos from various times and talk more about relationships and personalities. I find this is more rewarding for my family to look at. I also used to do all the scrapbooking of my step-daughters. But now they are old enough and love to do their own pages. That makes me very happy! They enjoy it so much and it is something we can do together.
   
   
8. What is your MUST have product that you could recommend?
   
   Oh boy! Definitely Kokuyo Adhesive! This is the best, best, best adhesive there is. I have tried them all and nothing comes close to comparing. Oh! And the Cuttlebug, that little toy is such fun!
   
   
9. Each month you come up with the most innovative ideas with basic scrapbooking supplies! WOO HOO! How do you keep it fresh? Do you have "experiment sessions"?
   
   I really struggle with this. To me, I don't feel it is fresh. I always worry that I am not sharing anything new with the readers. Coming up with tag ideas is tough. But I really love the challenge. It helps so much when I get emails from people saying they love the things they learn. It means SO much to me
   
   
10. What is the best part of it all?
    
    The best part of my job is that I get to work from home. Being with the kids is the best. A close second would be the people I get to work with. Amazing people.

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