In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Neva Cole

Here we are in the month of March and it is my turn for a spotlight and mini challenge. My name is Neva and I live in Central Oregon. I’ve been a West Coast girl almost all my life moving between Southern California, Alaska, and Oregon. I spent a year as an exchange student to Japan while still in high school. I will also admit to a short stint in Texas, but made a beeline back to the Northwest after my year teaching in a private school. By training I am a High School Science teacher, mostly Chemistry with a little Biology and Biotechnology mixed in. I married later in life at 45 because I waited for Mr. Right! 

Crossroad Layout Created in 2009 for my All About Me Album

When I married just over ten years ago I left full-time employment to substitute teach, do all the paperwork for running a small business, and raise our children. My husband has a daughter who is now away for her freshman year in college. We adopted two boys from Russia 5 1/2 years ago, and have enjoyed the journey of raising our boys. 

Created in 2012 for each of the boys' albums

Our older son is now 15, a freshman in high school and active in sports. We are very proud of the progress he has made academically; and watch him play soccer, wrestle, and high jump/long jump/run track. Our younger son is in third grade as a 9-year-old and is working very hard to overcome some of the speech and language delays. We are thankful for his great team and he is progressing at a rapid pace. He enjoys his riding his bike, doing flips on the trampoline, wrestling, and Cub Scout activities.

As my blog mentions I find Snippets of Time to Craft in between the entire goings on of life, raising kids, running a business, and caring for our home and property. We are fortunate to live on six acres and raise two steer each summer, usually 15-18 or so chickens, a couple of turkeys and one noisy duck. The grandparents help us with a garden; although it is challenging to raise veggies with our short growing season here in the high desert. It is lovely to have fresh eggs, produce, and organic beef from our little farm. We also raise German Shepherds and have a litter or two of pups each year. Right now we have 8 wonderful puppies, you can learn more about them on our Facebook page, vom Kaskadenberge. 

Can you believe I still have this! 

I was raised by a crafter, and have many memories of crafting, sewing, ceramics, and other assorted hobbies. I can trace my first red rubber stamp purchase along with clear embossing powder to 1983... even have the sales slip! I started paper crafting in earnest in 1995, as part of my two year-long healing therapy following a car accident and closed head brain injury. I was intrigued with paper engineering and created a pop-up resume for a job application at our Museum of Science and Industry. Fortunately there was a small local stamp shop within a few blocks of my home and I became a regular shopper and took a few classes. This started me down the path of my paper and ink addiction. In 1997 my sister and a Creative Memories workshop introduced me to archival scrapbooking. It is hard to believe that I have been at this wonderful pastime for 20 years!

I am blessed to have a huge room in our home dedicated to my crafting endeavors. I have many collections to indulge in from paper, inks, dies, stamps, stickers, specialty paper, paints, alcohol inks, ribbon, embellishments, glitter, fibers, chipboard, and so on. Over the years I have learned so much from online forums, classes at local stamp and scrapbook stores, and at conventions. Last fall I dove into blogging regularly and entering challenges. I applied to a few design teams and fortunately was selected for Anything But a Card and Retro Rubber Challenge Blog. 

I would describe my style as fairly eclectic and sometimes elegant. I am not much into grunge or shabby chic, but just about everything else is game. I would like to learn play more with different media forms, but know I already have plenty to keep my occupied for a long time!

My favorite thing to create is probably mini-albums. I like to have little albums that commemorate an event or trip. I have been known to make albums as gifts, especially for the crew of my husband’s sailing adventures! I like little books, and have a few that I’ve created over the years in many different styles. Here are a just a few!

Just a few of the mini books and albums I've created in 20 years. 

Created in 1999 as a gift for my Grandparents, it has since been returned to me.

Created in 2006, one for my DH and one for his crew on the sailboat.

Created in 2007 – two copies : )

Created for my daughter in 2007. Lots of pockets and flaps.

Gift album created in 2009 for a friend who coordinated a forum. 

My interior contribution and the back of the album. 

Part of a birthday album created for DSD in 2010.

Started as a kit from the Button Farm, but grew

into a much larger acrylic mini album in 2013.

My most recent acrylic mini album is one I created of our trip to Colorado for the Buccaneer North American Championships, which can be viewed in this post on my blog. If you just want to look at the photos and not read all the instructions, click on the first photo and go through them slide show style! 

Created in 2015, actual size is 3" x 3".

My challenge for this week is to make

a mini-album or mini book of any style.

My sample made for the challenge commemorates the year 2014 in photos and is done in with a Meander Album like the one created here in the Split Coast Stampers Tutorial. Come check my full blog post over at Snippets of Time to Craft on how I created this little gem! Dear Husband likes the album, but the photos are too small for him... however he wants me to digitize the album so he can share it as well.

An InLinkz Link-up