Sunday Spotlight: janfrn

I was leaving some love on all of the fantastic pages being posted in the Trixie Scraps gallery and came across some lovely layouts by janfrn and thought it would fun to get to know her better!

Thankfully, Jan was happy to let me interview her! I had a lot of fun getting to know her better! Here is a bit about Jan in her own words:

I’m the wearer of many hats. I’m a wife (to a gadget geek), a mom (to 3 adult offspring), a daughter (both my parents are still living), a big sister (I have a brother and 2 sisters), an aunt (to one niece), a nurse (in pediatric critical care) and a gardener/jewelry designer/cardmaker/photographer/scrapbooker/handyman/family historian. I live in a small city just north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada now but I’ve lived in 8 of the 10 provinces and one state. I have a tattoo of a dragonfly on my right ankle and purple streaks in my mostly-gray hair. And I’m a packrat… a term I much prefer to the one my daughter uses for my collections – she calls me a hoarder. But really, you never know when you might need a cross-stitch magazine from 1992. Do you?

How long have you been digi scrapping and how did you get into it?
Let’s see. I started paper scrapping in 2006 when my sister decided “we” should put together a scrapbook for our parents’ 50th anniversary. Since she doesn’t have a creative bone in her body and does have a demanding career (as if I don’t! ICU nursing isn’t demanding at all…) I knew it would actually be “me”. Our house is pretty small and I don’t have a dedicated room or area for all my crafting goodies, so I soon became tired of hauling out all my supplies from various corners of the house (if I could even remember where I’d put things…), crazily scrapping into the dark of the night and then cleaning up the mess and putting it all away again. I had seen some digital pages in scrapbooking magazines and thought, “Gee. Those are amazing. Imagine… no mess. But I could never do anything as beautiful as that.” So I didn’t even try until early in 2010 when I picked up my first digital freebies. Those first attempts while I was learning Photoshop Elements were pretty primitive. And I wasn’t impressed at all with my efforts. But in the fall I was laid up with a broken bone in my foot and couldn’t work for 6 weeks. (Halleluiah!) I decided to try again and was hooked. I did a couple of webinars and played with the software a bit. As I got more comfortable with PSE, I started trying different things; I joined several digital scrapbooking communities, started doing their challenge layouts and here we are.

Well, I am glad that you gave digital another try! I think there were a lot of not so wonderful first pages made, I know mine are pretty cringe worthy!

What is your favourite Trixie Scrap product?
Hmm… Hmm. How does one choose? Let me look at my stash. BRB… Okay. What attracted me to Trixie Scraps Designs initially were the embossed cardstocks that are available for most of her kits. Then I glommed onto her awesome templates. Most of my favourite layouts start out with a TSD template. If I have to pick a kit, then it’s Frosted Windowpanes. For a couple of reasons. The colour palette is the one I used to decorate my living room 4 years ago, and where I live we have a 5- or 6-month long winter! So I have LOTS of winter pictures to scrap with. I’m not really a kit scrapper; I like to pull things that I love a lot into my layouts and most of my stuff will have bits and pieces from several designers. There’s usually something from TSD (besides a fabulous template) in there somewhere. I loved the Show Me the Mini challenges at Gotta Pixel because a) they forced me to use a single kit, b) they forced me to use every piece in the kit and c) they gave me some beautiful layouts!

Oh, that is one of my faves, also! I have to agree about Trixie’s templates, I find myself using them all the time!

When do you scrap?
Because I’m a shift-worker and have days off during the week while my son is at his day program, I have a lot of free afternoons. It’s a great time to scrap because I have few interruptions. I also can get a lot done in the evenings while the men of the house are watching guy-stuff on TV and I’m left to my own devices. On a particularly good day I can get 3 layouts done and posted without breaking a sweat.

Wow, 3 pages a day! I wish I could get that many done!

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland. Many of my ancestors came to Canada from there. Some were already here before the Famine but most of them came at the height of it. And it looks like I will be fulfilling that dream next June. My cousin has invited me to join her on a bus tour around the country and I’m afraid I nearly blew her over with my enthusiastic response.

That is going to be an amazing vacation!

Have you ever won anything?
I’ve won a number of small but not-insignificant things. Quite a few years ago I won a cross-stitch design contest. (It was third place, but so what! They published my design and gave me $50.) In late 2009 I won a trip to a 2-day nursing conference in my old hometown (I won’t lie, THAT’s why I entered in the first place). In 2011 I won a Wacom tablet after taking part in a scraplifting challenge. (Still getting used to how it works.) And just the other day I won a gift certificate to GP. As for the Big Jackpot… well, you’ve gotta play to win and I prefer the prize of having my money in my own wallet!

I am the same way with the lottery, I always wish to win, but never want to play!

If you could have dinner with anyone, past or present, who would it be?
This might be the toughest question of all. There are lots of historical figures I’d love to talk to. Strong women like Queen Elizabeth I, Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightingale, Emily Murphy (gotta have some Canadian content!) and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. But truthfully, I would be thrilled to have dinner with my great-grand aunt Phyllis Evangeline Shaw. She represents a great mystery in my family history because no one now living knows what ever became of her. My mother hadn’t even known she existed. Through diligent research I’ve followed her from England to Canada and back to England three times. The last time she returned to England she just disappeared. I know she could explain so many things about her own mother and why she did the things she did. And she could fill me in on the sibling of hers and my great-grandmother’s that didn’t survive childhood, who also remains a mystery.

Ah, if only time machines were real! Hopefully one day you will be able to find the information you are looking for!

I asked Jan what her favourite page using Trixie Scraps products was, and she gave me the link to this beauty!

My daughter has been so focused on achieving her dream career that it looked like any other dreams might have had to fall by the wayside. But life is funny. Just when she decided that she was going to be one of those married-to-her-demanding-career women, life stepped in and threw her a curve ball. She’s having her dream wedding on September 2 in a beautiful old mansion on Lake Michigan and I’m expecting to hear that they’re starting a family soon after that. You really can have it all!

I love what she did with this page, the bracket mat, the title and the “then” and “now” photos!