Today we are going to get to know one of our ScrapMatters Girls, Amanda DawnRN. I asked Amanda to tell us a little about herself and shared a lot!

“My name is Amanda, aka Amanda DawnRN in the scrap forums,  and I just turned 33 in August. I’m married to my high school sweetheart and we have 2 children. My oldest is a daughter,who will turn 7 on Halloween and my youngest is a son who just turned 2 on 9/11. I have lived in Florida all of my life but have ventured from city living as a child to country living as a teen and landed back in the city as a college student and decided I like the city best.  I have been a nurse for over 13 years. I recently transitioned from a high stress and overworked job as a hospital case manager to an awesome job working as a medical review nurse from the comfort of my home office.

My hobbies include scrapping and cruising the galleries leaving love and in the forums meeting new people and chatting with the members. I also enjoy photography, being outside, and lots of family time. I love relaxing and trying to keep up with all those new fall shows collecting on my DVR too.  I’m a big yard sale and consignment sale addict. I have recently wondered across lots of local yard sale groups on Facebook and have made some great deals thus far. I also like to participate in local consignment sales both as a seller and a shopper. I am that crazy lady that gets there an hour or more early to wait for the doors to open to grab the best deals. I usually gross about $400-500 in sales myself and frequently spend most of that at the same sale.

I have been scrapping since my teen years. I transitioned to digital in 2008. I applied to creative teams very quickly to support my addiction and was luckily accepted to a few. Most of my pages are of my children and family. My children are more fun than I ever thought kids could be and they give me lots of fun moments to scrap.  I like to create All About Me pages too. I don’t really have a style per say but I am addicted to templates and usually start my layout with one. I also love scraplifting other layouts that inspire me. Since the birth of my son and my 2 year venture with a demanding job I have been in a scrapping slump but am hoping as things have begun to settle down I can make a little more time. It’s hard to have some many ideas in your head for a page and not able to sit down and do it.”

This was one of Amanda’s first layouts.  It was created for a creative team tryout and won her a spot. The little one in this layout is her daughter when she was  about 2 and a half.  She sure has Mommy’s eyes!

I asked Amanda to talk about how she found ScrapMatters and then she gives us all some pretty sage advice about backing up our memories!

“I wandered across ScrapMatters only months after I ventured in the digital world. I found the site after coming across Britt-ish Designs. By the age of 3 my daughter had already been to Disney several times so I had a million photos to scrap and her designs were perfect. I have been on many Creative Teams that have made a visit as a designer at ScrapMatters. I really don’t have a favorite designer but I stuck around at ScrapMatters because I really like the wide variety of designer styles and really love the supportive and creative atmosphere.

The most important thing  I have learned in my several years as a digital scrapper is to back up my memories. It took several near misses, loss , recovery hours and fear of heartbreak from losing memories. With my 3 scares with 1 hard drive and 2 external drives thus far, I was lucky enough only to lose a month or so of memories . I got smart and signed up for an online back up and now I love the peace of mind. So that is my most important piece of advice is to find a back-up that works for you and stick with it because the precious memories we create and document can be gone in a flash.”

Since Amanda told us she liked to do All About Me layouts, I was glad she shared this one about

her changing hairstyles through the years. Here is what she had to say about it.

“This is the last layout I’ve completed and it has become my favorite:  Right now I am in the process of letting my hair grow out some so it is neat to look at this and see all the styles I have had over the years.”

Thanks, Amanda! I love getting to know the people I spend time with at ScrapMatters and I hope everyone says hi to Amanda when you see her in the forums.