Hello hello everyone! After taking three glorious and much-needed weeks off for the holidays, I am back and ready to kick off 2013 with a bang.

I love the start of a new year. There’s something so inspiring about saying goodbye to the good (and sometimes less good) memories of the past year and starting fresh with a clean slate.

2012 was a bit of a bumpy year for Adam and me. There were some pretty major life and job changes we thought and/or hoped would happen that didn’t and it left us at the end of the year feeling a bit thrown for a loop as to where to go from here.

One of the big things for me was the passing of my grandmother back in July. As I’ve mentioned before, my grandmother was a scrapbooker and when she passed, she left behind close to 60 years worth of albums dating back to the late 1940s.

Realizing just how much I treasure these albums now that she’s gone has made me think a lot about why I scrapbook, what I’m most passionate about and how I can tie all that together as part of Nettio Designs. And after much, much thought & deliberation these past six months, I think I’ve finally got it figured out.

Or more, I realized the answer was staring me in the face the entire time…literally.

Back in 2009 when I was part of The Digi Dare blog team, we had a challenge to scrapbook a layout that summed up what we were all about in exactly 7 words, no more, no less. This is what I came up with:

Earlier this year when I redesigned my office, I sorted back through all my old printed layouts looking for one to hang up on my wall. That layout is the one I chose.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time but after staring at it day after day, week after week, I realized, this is it.

This is what Nettio Designs is all about: creatively capturing your life adventures.

It’s not about templates or speed or getting caught up.

It’s about cultivating a life full of adventures both big and small and capturing them in a creative way that screams you.

That’s what I want from my scrapbooking. And that’s what I want for yours too.

So this is where my focus will be this year. Creating products and sharing tips and projects designed to inspire and help you capture your life adventures in a creative way.

I’ll be sharing more details about exactly this means to me and you later, but suffice it to say, I’m excited, and I hope you’re excited and ready to come along on this creative journey with me too. It’s going to be fun.

Over the next few months I’ll be making some changes around here to better fit with where I want to go.

First up is a recommitment to sharing my projects and thoughts here on the blog. In the first year of Nettio Designs, blogging was one of my favorite parts of this job but when I moved to selling my products at the Sweet Shoppe it fell a bit by the wayside. So I’m bringing it back in a big way.

Secondly, I’ll be revamping the email list to include a new weekly email with scrapbooking-related thoughts from me. I’m keeping the details a secret for now but next Wednesday, Jan 16th will be the first issue, so if you don’t want to miss out make sure you’re signed up on the email list using the signup box in either the blog sidebar to the right or the footer down below. It’s big and blue and says “Sign up for awesomeness” on it. And if you already receive Nettio Designs emails, you’re good to go since it’s the same list.

Welcome twenty thirteen. You’re going to be an awesome year, I can already tell. 

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