by Angie Felix

Angie Pedersen, Author

Best-selling author Angie Pedersen recently launched a 15-Stop Virtual Book Tour to promote The Book of Us: A Guide to Scrapbooking About Relationships. It’s her third book in the The Book of Me series on scrapbook journaling.

It’s hard to believe it was just under six years ago that Angie began scrapbooking. She started on July 17, 1998—she remembers the exact date that she wrote the first check to a Creative Memories consultant.

“I had seen a couple of friends’ scrapbooks and thought it looked like a great way to preserve memories and photos,” Angie explains. “So, I went to an open crop with a shopping list in hand and was instantly hooked. The next day I saw a Creating Keepsakes magazine and the whole world opened up. From that day on, I viewed everything in terms of a scrapbooking layout.”

When she began scrapbooking in 1998, Angie started adding scrapbooking content to The Mother of All Websites, a site she had started in 1997 with content meant for stay-at-home-moms. From there, she began attending crops frequently at a local store with a friend and her eyes were opened to the large number of techniques and products available. In 2000, Angie began teaching classes at a new store.

Teaching boosted Angie’s confidence in her abilities to help others learn about scrapbooking and she soon launched her website called OneScrappySite.com .

In 2001 Angie started working on her own The Book of Me. She began to realize how affirming it could be to document one’s own stories, using her own scrapbook as a tool to help improve her outlook on life and to prove to herself her own worth. She shared the project with friends at crops, only to discover that they had never created a page about themselves. The process had worked so well for her that she decided to help others find those same feelings of self-worth.

“That’s basically the impetus for each of my books—wanting to provide some structure for others to follow in creating similar projects for themselves,” Angie explains. “In The Book of Me, I wanted to share the resources I’d found when making my scrapbook. In Growing Up Me, I wanted to share the basic outline I’d developed for teaching kids how to scrapbook the positive aspects of their lives. And for The Book of Us, I wanted to share the framework my husband outlined for the scrapbook I created for his anniversary with his friend.”

After The Book of Me came out, Angie taught a class at the ACCI tradeshow and started receiving requests to teach at stores around the country. She traveled nearly every other week to teach classes while she worked on Growing Up Me.

“Now I have three books out, travel occasionally to teach classes, teach two scrapbooking classes online, maintain my websites and do a little freelance writing for magazines,” Angie says.

She teaches a variety of classes based on her books—the basic The Book of Me concept, how to add personality to journaling and how to best illustrate a relationship.

“My basic approach to teaching is to give people ideas and resources, then encourage them to run with the material,” she explains. Angie, a former preschool teacher, loves to see people “get it” in her classes. “I love being able to provide ideas and resources that help people see the importance of my subject matter, and then watch them turn around and apply it. It’s just the biggest kick for me.”

As for the future, Angie will do her Virtual Book Tour for two weeks (ending May 8, 2005), then has some travel appearances and online classes scheduled. She’ll likely begin work on her next book project this fall.

Angie created this sarabook™ for The Book of Us

This "Story of Us" album is a quick illustration of how she and her husband are “passionate friends”.

Click here for larger image.



Front Cover

Click here for larger image.


Insside

Angie says:
“While we were dating, I read a book by relationship expert Harville Hendrix that included the following quote: “Marriage is not a static state between two unchanging people. Marriage is a psychological and spiritual journey that begins in the ecstasy of attraction, meanders through a rocky stretch of self-discovery, and culminates in the creation of an intimate, joyful lifelong union…it’s about the…practice of becoming passionate friends.” David and I have been “passionate friends” for over 14 years now. “

“This sarabook™ describes that special friendship—the story of how we became passionate friends, what forms our friendship has taken, the evidence of the strength of our relationship, the signs of our love for each other, and what I want my children to know about love. I included hidden journaling, quotes, movie posters and lists of things we enjoy doing together. It is a really meaningful tribute, and testimony to the strength of our relationship—all in one little album.”

For more about Angie Pedersen’s The Book of Us, check out this month’s Books in Review column.