Paper Bakery Guest Detective - Amanda Johnson

[Debbi Tehrani]

Hi! My name is Amanda Johnson. I live in Loogootee, a small town in southern Indiana. I am blessed enough to be a stay-at-home mom to my two little ladies,  ages 5 and 3, I love having the opportunity to be there with my girls as they grow and get all those important everyday moments captured with my trusty camera! =) They keep me very busy and inspire me on a daily basis. I am married to the most amazing man, my best friend and true love, we recently celebrated our 8th anniversary.

 I started scrapping about 4 yrs ago when my oldest daughter was just a few months old. I had always loved taking pictures and this was a wonderful next step for me! I wanted to have a place to also record the stories behind all those pictures. I didn't want to be sitting with my girls one day, looking through old albums, and have no memory at all of what some of those everyday pictures were about, the story behind them. I am not a crafty person by nature, so I was very surprised when I loved scrapping as much as I did! Now I love having that "me" time in my craft space, and I also love being able to share the albums and layouts I make with family and friends,  and I love passing this wonderful love for creating onto my daughters.

Interrogation:

What is your favorite color(s) to work with?I honestly don't know that I have a favorite color to work with. I am pretty random in that respect, I just go with what I like at that particular moment.

What would you say is your "fingerprint" on your scrapbook pages? (i.e., what do most of your pages have that make it your signature style?) Things that are on 95% of my layouts, that I feel are "my style" are handwritten journaling and misting. I never feel like my layout is complete unless I toss a little paint on there, and I love the look of handwritten notes to my girls.

 What do you find most challenging when working on a layout? For me the most challenging is measuring and planning. I am very much just a cut and adhere girl. I eyeball a piece to the size I think I want it, and down it goes. Sometimes this works amazing for me, sometimes not so much, lol, but I find when I actually try to measure pieces out and lay them out before I adhere that I just get frustrated and it takes the joy out of crafting for me.

 What is your favorite part about CSI--the colors, the stories, or the inspiration? This is my first time playing along with CSI, and I will be honest, the color portion was a struggle for me, but I love all of the prompts that are given. I think it is such a fun blog and really makes you step up out of your comfort zone and push yourself to grow.

Confession time. Okay, fess up! What secret do you not want to admit but are willing to confess here? I am a major procrastinator when it comes to my deadlines...I have time to get it done, and time to get it done, yet everytime I find myself the day before or the day they are due I am busy finishing something up. However, I also find that I work the best this way, it helps me to push myself a little more, and I always end up loving those layouts so much more vs the ones I do spend lots of time on...my stress levels would probably prefer I don't do this, but I figure if its working for me, why change it now! lol

 To see more of my work, please visit my blog, Random Sweetness.