This has been a long time coming, and I’ve actually been dreading writing this post, but now I know that I’m doing the right thing for me.

When I started designing a couple of years ago, I knew I had found something that I had a certain type of talent for, and it was something I loved to do. It was a lot of work but I had a fantastic friend and mentor in Tiffany, of InspiredbyDominic Designs. Scrapping and designing was how Tiffany and I met – I started out on her creative team by just sending an email, and over the first month we found that we had a lot in common and we became great friends. Tiffany eventually encouraged me to get into designing, gave me her critique and tips, and we’ve been friends ever since.

Almost 3 years later – I’m a much different person than I was 3 years ago. I can’t really explain what made me change or how I changed, and it might sound stupid to some. You wouldn’t think that something like designing would change a person, but I know it’s at least played a part, because it’s been so big of a part of my life for the last 3 years.

But now, I feel like I haven’t been spending the last 3 years wisely. I haven’t been spending as much time with my family as I should have been. I’ve neglected my scrapping, which is the whole reason I got into designing in the first place. I’ve had fun, but I’m longer having fun designing, so it’s time for me to leave.

I’ll be around the scrapping world – I’m having fun rediscovering the love for scrapping a page. I’ve also found a new love in fiber arts – crocheting and knitting. I started crocheting a few months ago and I’m just now really learning to knit. I’ve been playing around lately with designing my own crocheting patterns, and I also have a backlog of friends and family asking for items from me, and other people wanting to pay me for my time and work. So between my scrapping, needleworking, and continuing to make jewelry like I have been for years, I’ll definitely be keeping busy.

I’ve enjoyed all the time I’ve spent designing, and I’m going to miss it. I will probably continue to design kits for myself, but they will not be available for sale. I may offer up the occasional freebie item – mini kits, templates, clusters, maybe even a full kit every now and then. Eventually, my design blog will disappear, with only a link to my TOU for those who will need it, and a link to my personal blog for those who would still like to follow me. Maybe you’re a knitter or crocheter yourself and you’re interested in seeing my items, or you just want to continue to see what I’m up to.

My retirement sale runs from today (January 15th) until January 31st, 2012. Everything in my shop is 60% off, including collabs and bundles (which are at an even deeper discount because I didn’t want to do the math involved) because most of them will not be available again after the 31st.

I have had so much fun the past 3 years, and I look forward to even more fun getting back in touch with my scrapping, and putting together those memories for my family. After all, it is how I started 13 years ago, as a paper scrapper when I was 12 years old. I’m even more excited to get back in touch with my other hobbies too – I’ve already found a ton more spare time for myself, even increasing the time that I spend taking care of my house and family. It’s been rewarding, it really has.

So if you want anything from my shop, grab it before the 31st because it will be gone after that. I look forward to getting back into scrapping and sharing my layouts with the world again.

I haven’t posted to my blog in a long time, and I haven’t had anything new for a while. It’s shaping up to be a very slow season for me.

I am starting to prepare for the holiday season – I have decided to go 90% handmade this year for Christmas, as I often have a hard time trying to find appropriate store-bought items for people in my family around this time of year. The only items that I plan to be buying this year from a store are gifts for my son, wrapping paper, boxes, and bows – there is a possibility that I will end up needing to buy some last-minute gifts for people that I don’t have time to make anything for. So I have been busy planning and starting up – most of my gifts will be knitted, and I also plan to make some decorated candles and homemade bath items, like sugar scrubs and other items I have seen on Pinterest.

I have started on a new kit, but with so many items to finish up for Christmas, it will be a slow process. I am planning for DSD and the holiday season, and I hope to have some new items for November. So it’s almost like a hiatus – but know that I’m working busy behind the scenes.

Hi everyone!

I’ve basically got the new design all set up. A couple of quick notes:

- I’m having problems with the RSS feed. The URL is incorrect, since a few months ago I had a little problem with my blog and I had to change a few things. When I made the changes to the URL and everything went back up, I completely forgot that it affected the RSS feed. I will get this figured out as soon as possible and update all RSS feed links. Until then, the RSS feed links will not work correctly.

- The Categories section in the sidebar is not working. I’m trying to figure out a way to include it so that it’s not only visually appealing with the new design, but also functional. This is proving to be a little more difficult than it looks, but with enough experimentation I should get there.

- There are a couple of things that just look “off”. Some of the items like the footer and also the menu, don’t quite match up with the background. I currently don’t know how to fix this. Also, I think I have fixed the mismatch in the background and header when you don’t have your browser open full-screen.

- Some of the sidebar items and pages are still a little off, please bear with me as I finish them over the next few days.

- I have added a Wibiya toolbar, for just a little bit more interactivity. Some people may like this, some may not. If you find it to be an annoyance, click on the two down arrows on the very right side of the toolbar – this will hide the toolbar and turn it into a much smaller toolbar. The full-sized toolbar shouldn’t affect any of the content or make anything inaccessible, with the exception of not being able to see just a sliver of the footer.

I think that should be all of the problems that anybody should have until I can finish getting everything set up. It will take a few days to finish everything. Since I’m doing an overhaul of my logo and a couple of slight changes to my preview, I’m making a lot of changes to other things like my Facebook page and some of the images as well, and it will all take just a few days to finish. Everything should be finished by around the end of the month – let’s hope.

My giveaway of a couple of new releases is also still going on until tomorrow, just go back to the main page and scroll down one post!