CAUTION: this is a super long post and I am pouring out my heart, so you might wanna skip it or get a cup of hot chocolate before you get started 
Lately I find that the scrapbooking scene is shifting, getting a new direction. When I read Elizabeth Kartchners Blog I always think, her life’s gotta be so perfect! With a fun husband that makes sweet jokes all the time, three adorable girls, the best career a girl could ever get…. Yes, her life’s gotta be perfect! Why I’m even thinking about that stuff? Well, a couple days ago I was listening to Noell Hymans Roundtable Show and they were talking about bloggers/scrappers that never show mistakes, all their pages are perfect and so is their house, life and family. Then a couple girls were saying that they show people how they themselves make mistakes with their art journals. They show every single page, if they like the result or not.
Somehow I got a little upset when they talked about the girls that seem to be oh so perfect. Were they jealous? I don’t know. But I know that my blog usually never shows any mistake on my layouts. I usually never talk about the hard times Adrian and I are going through from time to time and I usually never show pictures of our sometimes pretty messy home. Are people thinking my life’s 100% perfect too? A young girl (just about to turn 21 in a couple weeks), married to a wonderful man, immigrated to the USA, having traveled quiet a bit, having worked in a few DT’s, designed her own stamps and now the new venture ScrapbookMentor! Are you thinking I’m perfect? Maybe, I don’t know and I’d rather not be perfect in your eyes, because I’m not! I do make mistakes on my pages (but I know how to cover them up 99 times out of 100), Adrian and I do have fights about those stupid little small things, I do get moody, my mouth does stink in the morning and sometimes work (even tough I love scrapbooking) does suck! I can get frustrated and I do have to clean our home 2 times a week. Our bunny does poop and our kitchen can get super messy and stinky and just sit there for a couple days until I clean up! That’s just life and everybody – how perfect their blog seems – is going through those days.
I’m a little afraid and concerned that the scrapbooking scene is shifting into that ‘oh I’m such a normal girl with lots of mistakes’ kinda thing. Who the heck wants to read a blog where the main theme is: let’s complain and show the world how real I am – with all my many mistakes and errors. Aaaaahm, no thanks for me! I’d rather read a blog that is happy and positive, that gets my creative juices flowing! Sure, sometimes it’s really great to talk about the deeper things in our lives. And I even find it can help the writer as much as the reader – in fact – I got inspired for this blog post over at Decor8 with this post!
I don’t even know why I wrote this all, but somehow it seemed very important, to pour out my heart, to tell you that I’m not so perfect and neither is my life. I think the main reason why my posts usually are so happy and filled with smilies is, because I prefer to write when I feel good. I tend not to complain as much as when I feel horrible. Does that make sense to you? Also I really am not proud of our home when it’s all messy, so why even bother to snap a picture and share it here? Sure, a creative mess can be fun, but a clean desk is so so much more inspiring – at least for me
Don’t get me wrong now, I adore Noell Hyman and I love to listen to her and the girls on the show 
And I guess it wouldn’t hurt too much to share a layout that got a few little beauty marks – if you now what I mean.. But on the other hand I think that we just have to start living with that – so what if a page didn’t come out perfectly! Doesn’t mean I have to complain about it and show the whole wide world how much I messed it up just to make them feel a specific way about myself. I think a blog should be personal, it should represent me myself and I – so my posts will continue to be happy, I will add lots of smilies and I won’t necessarily show you those messy spaces in our 700 sq ft home
And here’s already the first exception for what I just said A pretty messy desk with my brand new awesome computer 
(sitting right next to it, the 4 year old laptop….)
See, I can be messy too And the good part about that is: I’m so not ashamed of it (at least not in this pic… heeeeehee )
Happy Scrappin’
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