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The Blue Light Special
by Sandi Tygar (aka Tigger)
View Blue Light Special articles
Welcome to the Blue Light Special! Each month
Sandi Tygar will spotlight one of ScrapLove's amazing members! She'll be talking about their design layouts, scrapbooking memories, and will get up close and personal about their friends, family and daydreams. Check out Sandy's most recent special below!
Hi Dorothy! First let me say how much fun it is posting with you here at Scraplove!
We are going to start off with scrapbook talk and then we'll venture off to unknown zones...
Q: How long have you been scrapbooking?
A: I say I really got started a little more than a year ago.
Q: How did you start?
A: I actually started in 1994 but it wasn’t really “scrapbooking”, at least not like now! It was just matting photos with colored paper and putting the white pages in a 3-ring binder. And I quit in 1996 when life got too busy! Then, after I moved to Texas I was introduced to the evil world of the scrapbook store! I also met Jessica (mountainmama74) & she scrapped so I had someone to get me going again. I completed what I consider my first REAL layout at an all day crop in October 2003!
Q: How often do you scrap?
A: I usually scrap about twice a week… sometimes late at night during the week & sometimes all day on the weekend!
Q: What is your favorite technique right now?
A: Distressing & painting! I just tried distressing ink a few weeks ago but everything from that point on has ink on it!! I am also obsessed with paints and foam stamps.
Q: Favorite embellishment?
A: Metal anything! Letters, bottle caps, wire, clips, just anything!
Q: Do you prefer top loaders or strap hinge? Why?
A: Top loaders. I never scrap in order. When I need to rearrange layouts, I love the ease of the top-loading album.
Q: How's your BOM going?
A: That depends on your outlook! I have 3 layouts completed… Nothing since the one I posted for the Me Pages Contest on Scraplove. I get so caught up scrapping the kids’ pictures that I forget about my album.
Q: What was your very first LO of?
A: Noah’s First Haircut! I’ll have to post that one in my gallery.
Q: Has your style changed significantly since you started scrapbooking?
A: I think “significantly” is an understatement! I can’t believe the early ones & the recent ones were done by the same person. Once I discovered eyelets, fibers and vellum, there was no turning back!
Q: What do you feel is the most important feature on a LO -
a) photo
b) journaling
c) embellishments
d) balance
A: a) photo – I always start with the photos. Most of my layouts are of my youngest son, Noah. I have taken over 10,000 photos since he was born! I usually have lots to choose from! Thank goodness for digital cameras!
Q: Favorite scrapbook store?
A: Well, I absolutely love Scrapbook Warehouse (both of them in the Dallas area – 130 miles away), but I rarely get down there. There’s only one local scrapbook store, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. Scrapbook ‘n Such is actually a good one, it’s just small and sometimes they don’t have the “newest” items that I want to try.
OK - Let's talk about the down and dirty details of Dorothy...
Q: Birthday? Which makes you what sign of the zodiac?
A: My birthday is January 24, 1972. (Yep, I’ll be 33 in about 2 months.) I’m an Aquarius… and that’s usually a pretty true description of me!
Q: Married with children we know - tell us a little about dh and kids...
A: This is the second marriage for both of us. We’ve been together since October 1996. We got married in 1999 when Tom got military orders to go overseas. Those orders were cancelled 4 months later. He jokes that if he had waited just a little longer he could’ve avoided tying the knot! We have one son together. Noah will be 2 in December. He is our little miracle child. It took almost 2 years of infertility, pre-term labor and an emergency c-section to get him!
I was first married when I was 17. I had my first son 10 ½ months after the wedding, my second son when I was 21 then divorced at 22. My boys are now 11 and 14.
Tom married his high school sweetheart & had one son before she left with his best friend! His son is 10 and lives in Florida.
Q: You're at Sheppard now, but I know a move is in the fairly near future - any idea yet where you'll end up?
A: My husband works on F-15 jets so the number of bases we can go to is limited. We are hoping to go overseas next. The possibilities are Okinawa, Germany, England and Alaska. If his retraining package is approved, we can go almost anywhere. If we don’t go overseas, we’d like something on the east coast… and yes, there’s a base in New Jersey on the list!!
Q: Talk to us a little about the challenges and joys of being a military wife.
A: Most days it’s not a bad life. Usually the good outweighs the bad! It helps that we have a dependable income, a roof over our heads, health care and we live behind a gate that helps keep our kids safer than if we lived off base here. I’ve also met some amazing friends and learned a lot about myself. This move to Texas was the first time I was away from my family. It’s a lot to handle but having friends that can relate (and commiserate!) helped more than they will ever know. It’s also tough to move with children. They hate to leave their friends and familiar schools. I think the hardest part is seeing the look on my mom and dad’s faces when we leave at the end of a visit. They were very close to my older boys and I know they feel like they are missing out on so much of their lives, especially Noah.
Q: Ex-police officer, right? Where and when?
A: I went through police training in 1994, the year I got divorced. I worked for a small, rural sheriff’s department in northwest Florida. I was their first and only female officer.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I was born in Panama City, Florida. I lived within in that same area until the Air Force sent us to Texas in 2001. My parents have lived in exactly the same place since I was in 4th grade.
Q: Siblings?
A: I have one sister, Pattie. She’s 1 year older than me. She was born blind and while my parents were taking her to see specialists & have surgeries… woops! I was conceived!!
Q: How is the yodeling coming along?
A: HAHAHAHAHA!!! My husband just came in here to check on me! I laughed so loud he just had to know what was so funny!! I don’t know how to go about finding a yodeling instructor but I’m thinking I’ll have to do that someday just so I can put it in my BOM!
I've chosen a couple of my favorite LO's from your gallery, tell us a little about each one.
This one ranks up there with my favorites too! It was one of those projects that just flowed easily. I had no plan when I sat down at the scrapping desk.
Noah absolutely loves to type on the computer. We have to keep the roll top desk closed unless one of us is at the desk! The day I took these pictures, we were getting ready to go to the park when Noah dumped out a glass of juice on his shirt. I stripped him down to diaper & shoes to get clean clothes. When I came back in the room, he was happily typing away! He had that “cat that ate the canary” look on his face. I saved his Word document and when I started to scrap the pictures, I remembered the typing! This layout won a first place ribbon for “Most Creative” in the contest at the local fair in September!
Wow… I know I’m gonna cry just typing about this one! Like I said before, when I was pregnant with Noah, we already considered him our little miracle. Then his birth was proof. I had to have an emergency c-section because of placental abruption. (For those that watch General Hospital, that’s what happened to Sam’s baby.) I was bleeding internally and Noah’s heart rate was at 52 when they hooked me up to the monitors. (normal for a baby is over 130) I almost died twice while in surgery. Noah and I were both lucky to survive. I owe our lives to the amazing doctor and nurses that took care of us. I wanted to record my birth story but I wanted it to be private at the same time. This layout means the most to me. The picture doesn’t show the journaling. It’s under the big picture on the right side. I will go to my album and type the journaling out if anyone wants to read it. It’s not too detailed, as I knew Noah would someday read it and I didn’t want to scare the living daylights out of him!
Thanks for letting me Blue Light you Dorothy - I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me!
AND - we were VERY good and behaved ourselves totally...
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