Digital Scrap-booking Meetup

Well I checked off another item on my list:  "9. Attend a meetup for digital scrap-booking."

I have been interested in converting to digital scrap-booking for a while now and my mother in law bought me a 3 month membership and 8x8 storybook through Heritage Makers for my birthday in August. I am just now getting into it and will be activating my membership so that I have access to all of the fancy "papers" and embellishments. I had joined a meetup group for digital scrap-booking a while ago, not thinking it was part of the same Heritage Makers group and have had other things going on when they'd have meetups in my area, so I haven't been able to attend. They finally had one today at the Starbucks down the street from me so I decided to go to it. Last night I had been playing around with some pages trying to figure out the program on my own and did a pretty good job with the cover and five pages about our last vacation to Cabo San Lucas. When I showed up to the meetup, I met with two consultants and another meetup member who was getting a tutorial about the program. I sat down with one of the consultants and she began to show me how to use the program, I discovered that I knew more than I thought and she didn't have much new to teach me. I even showed her a few things I picked up on my own when I was playing with the program the night before. I guess the photoshop training I got in school paid off. The program they use is very similar to many of the features used in photoshop, although a lot of the short-key methods don't work - which is kind of annoying when I am used to using it that way...."ctrl+shift+v" works for some things but hitting "enter" when you're cropping doesn't work so you have to actually click "done" for it to work. Just a bit of getting used to.

The other consultants were at a loss as far as what they could teach me, 'cause I already knew more than they thought I did. The consultant that my mother in law purchased the gift from did teach me a few things and I can't wait to get started using the new techniques. They suggested I'd make a good consultant, too - I am considering it, but would prefer to have a steady M-F full time job before doing it. It would for sure be more of a hobby thing for me and I have plenty of friends who may find this way of keeping their memories useful. They also have many gift ideas and greeting card templates available!! I know I wouldn't be making enough as a consultant for it to be better than what I am getting through unemployment, plus there arent any benefits so that would be the deal breaker. Once I get a full time job though, I will consider this on the side. I know it'd be worth it because I could get all of my own personal projects done at a cheaper price, if not free. That in itself would be awesome!!

I will most likely attend more meetups with this group, they are fun people to be around and if they aren't actually teaching me anything about the program or products, I can actually get a lot of my projects done without distractions!!