The Best of British Scrapbooking & Cardmaking

Venessa was born and grew up in South Africa where she married her husband Craig. The Matthews immigrated over to the UK in 1999 and since arriving in the UK, the family grew by two children, Hannah who is now five and Luke who is now three. Scrapbooking has helped Venessa make the change from one continent to the next without feeling lonely. She says, "Through scrapbooking I have made many special friends whom I regularly see and crop with. I spend my days being a full time mommy to Hannah and Luke and also do all the bookkeeping for my husband's business. I live in my jeans, drink too much coffee, love pink, and eat chocolates while I scrapbook. My most exciting time of the day is designing layouts until the early hours of the morning. I am honoured to have been selected as a Best of British winner and in the same year have won a place on the PaperKuts Power Team for 2005."

Venessa's introduction to scrapbooking is a bit unusual. "I was introduced to scrapbooking by my father back in June of 2002. When my parents visited me that year, we searched the UK and found a scrapbooking shop in London. After visiting the shop for the day, I was instantly hooked. Since then I somehow discovered an online community of scrappers at www.UKScrappers.co.uk, and have made the most amazing friendships. It has been fantastic to find people who have something in common with me besides the children. We now regularly crop together and attend cropping weekends all over the UK," she says. Initially scrapbooking was a way she chose to record special memories and times, but she now finds that it has also become a creative outlet where she can showcase her favourite photos. In short, she loves what she does, and she says, "I just love everything about this hobby, and my mind never stops working on new ideas."

Like many other BOBs winners, Venessa has decided that one of her favourite techniques at the moment is using her sewing machine to stitch on layouts. Venessa also loves applying Diamond Glaze to her titles and embellishments, making her own embellishments, handcutting titles, and using acrylic paints.

Of the layouts in The Best of British Scrapbooking and Cardmaking, Venessa's favourite has to be Beauty. She explains, "I somehow captured my daughter in a moment of thought and adore this photo of her. I love the way the light reflects through her sunhat and how smooth and silky her skin looks. The Making Memories paper perfectly suites this photo, and I just love the colour combination of this paper."

Not surprisingly, Venessa's favourite scrapbooking subject has to be her children. "I love photographing and creating pages of them. I rarely scrapbook anything or anyone else," she tells us.

Her favourite stockist in the UK is Scraptastic, for whom she also designs layouts. The connection also provides a social outlet. Venessa says, "I have a group of close friends that I regularly crop with and we host our own monthly crop in a local hall. Besides meeting monthly, we have also all attended various weekend crops together and have such a good time together."

This connection with others is so profound that Venessa goes on to tell us, "Scrapbooking has been a lifesaver for me. It helped me during a time of loneliness and homesickness to find and make new friends that share passion with me. The social side of scrapbooking is as rewarding as the hands on creative side for me, and I would encourage anyone to give it a go. I know that should I move areas, or even continents, that I will immediately find other scrapbookers and have instant friends."

And what if you are thinking of scrapbooking, but haven't started yet? Here's what Venessa has to say: "I think the most important advice anyone can give a new scrapbooker is that there simply is not a wrong way of scrapping. Often paging through magazines and idea books can be intimidating, but it is important to know why you want to scrapbook. We all scrapbook for different reasons and need to remember that our albums are not all necessarily for the public to view."