Having someone else create your scrapbook is inviting that person into your family. With that said, I would like to introduce myself before we embark on this partnership.

My name is Tracy Austin. I am a military wife of the United States Air Force. I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas, where we will reside for one more year. I am originally from Southern California. I am an elementary teacher by trade, but I am currently a stay-at-home mom to my much loved three-year-old daughter and to our newest addition of our family, whom arrived on October 5th...what a blessing!

I am a very artistic person by nature and have a number of crafting hobbies, from stained glass windows to quilting. After having a number of people tell me just how much they love my scrapbooks and would love to have me create one for them, I finally decided to do just that.

My scrapbook style is mostly based on the magazine layouts. I use a variety of techniques including eyelets/brads, chalk, paper tearing, paper piecing, matting, glass beads, ribbons/fibers, buttons, wire, sewing machine, etc. I stay up-to-date on the newest trends and love to apply these newest techinques to my layouts.

I also like to vary my album pages from busy to fairly basic to make for a pleasing effect.

As for how many photos I include on a page, it is always relative. The only rule I apply is to not force it.

Journaling is also very important to me. For the first two years of my daughter's life I kept a separate journal. I am now incorporating my journaling into her scrapbook albums. This has taken my journaling from detailing the photo events to documenting my thoughts, feelings, and love for her. I am inspired by quotes and poems and love to include them wherever possible.

I generally use the 12 x 12 size albums. Although, if your project needs call for a smaller size, we can do just that.

As for cropping photos, I believe a little cropping can go a long way. I have few photos of myself growing up (the result of storing your photos in boxes) and love scanning the background of the photo for familiar artifacts and people. I generally include one to three uncropped photos in a series of photos just for that reason. A healthy mix of cropped and not cropped is my philosophy.

I cherish my daughters' scrapbook albums and would love to create a treasured heirloom for you and yours.

Contact me at leusch_austin@hotmail.com with any queries you may have.