Introducing our June Guest Designer: Chrissy King!

I am so excited to have my friend, Chrissy King, guest designing for us at The ScrapRoom this month. Chrissy and I have known each other for more than 20 years now - since our college days in Missouri. She is originally from a small town in Illinois, just like I am, and we both worked together in the college recruitment department for awhile before winding up working together again at CIY after we both got married to our college sweethearts. We both found out we were expecting our first child at about the same time, and we went through those first pregnancies together. We both had sweet baby boys a few weeks apart. I am grateful for the time that she was in my life. Her high energy, ready smile and kind spirit were regular blessings to me.

Since she and her family moved to Central America to serve as missionaries many years ago, I don't get a chance to see Chrissy very often, but I have enjoyed keeping up with her life and her family by following her intersting blog. When I discovered that she was an avid scrapbooker and saw some of the beautiful pages that she created, I knew I had to ask her to guest design for us. Thankfully, she agreed, and I am so excited for you all to have the opportunity to get to know her a little bit better here.


About me: I am so excited to be the Guest Designer this month at The ScrapRoom. I've been a member of the ScrapRoom for a year now, but since I haven't posted on the boards, you don't know me yet. Well, let me remedy that!! My name is Chrissy, and my husband and I are missionaries in Costa Rica. We've lived here for six years now (and lived in Honduras for five years before that)!! I love Costa Rica: the people, the food, the language, the scenery, and I feel so blessed to live and work here!! I am Mom to four great kids who are the subject of most of my pages: three boys and one girl ranging from the oldest at 16 to my "baby" at nine! I am also an English teacher and the Secondary Department Coordinator at a small private high school here in San Jose. So, I keep busy!!

I started scrapbooking around the time my youngest son was born. We had returned to the US for a few years after our time in Honduras, and I discovered this great hobby!! I started teaching classes at our local store and making samples of new lines. And I totally loved it all. And right about then, we came back to Central America--which was totally wonderful for so many reasons, but a real bummer for my growing scrapbooking obsession!! Luckily, with online stores and idea galleries like the ScrapRoom, I can still stay in touch and see all the latest and greatest!!

Tammy asked me to pick a couple favorite layouts to share. That's almost impossible for me because I love them all but each for different reasons!! I started thinking and realized my very favorites are usually the ones I just completed (as they are new and fresh) or my oldest ones (they remind me why I do this!) So, in that light here are a couple "favorites"

"Today" is a recent one based on the May sketch (week 19). And the other two are oldies -- about six years ago -- but I love them. They remind me why I scrapbook. The kids have changed SOO much since these pages and I love to look back and see what I wrote or what they looked like. So important!! But I also chose them because I realize that is still my style. I love adding in new papers, new embellishments, new doodads, but my style is still pretty simple and classic. I like clean lines, great pictures and patterned paper with a few buttons and some ribbon thrown in here and there!!




So that's me in quick review. I'm excited to see what all of you do with the June FOTM kit. You're going to love it!!