And the Answer is....

Thank you to everyone who took the time to play in my little Q&A session :) Here are the answers (and probably more than you bargained for!) to your most burning questions! I hope you enjoy....
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Court said...
Kelly, what is your number one tip for getting published lots?
Submit lots. Seriously! Nothing more spectacular than that!

Kelly, How far away from me do you live? {now that I am a southern girl - transplant}
I'm not sure exactly where you live, Court, but I'm about 3-3.5 hours from Nashville and about 1.5-2 hours from both Cincy and Indy, and about 45 minutes from Lexington. Does that help?

Kelly, why are you so dang good?
Well, thank you! I got lucky?

chris jenkins said...
so my question is journaling 1st or design 1st? i always have trouble with making it all work and I am just curious how you do it.
I would say it's pretty simultaneous. Before I do any page, I have to have a story I want to tell. It doesn't have to be the official, "final" journaling, but I have to know the jist of what I want to say or I can't start a page. And at the same time, I use the photos and the story I want to tell dictate the design.

Barbie said...
I have read some blog entries but I just have to ask: What are 3 NSBR activities that you enjoy doing?
I love to read, but don't seem to do it much any more. It's a lot like scrapping to me. Once I get started, I tend to submerge myself in it until the book (or layout) is done. I have a passion for decorating/organizing/rearranging (but note this does NOT mean cleaning ;)). Oh, and I love to play board games.

Do you have any pets?
Nope, no pets right now. Well, there are these 2 cats that adopted us but they live outside as they always have. They just allow us to feed them. ;)

Why did you choose the names for your boys?
Ethan is Ethan William. Ethan is a name we just liked (after MUCH debating) and William was after my father who passed away when I was 7 months pregnant with him. His middle name *was* going to be Parker.
Turner is Turner Gabriel. Turner is my mother-in-law's maiden name and I thought it was really cool and different. Gabriel came out of a baby name book and was suggested by my dh.
Carson is Carson Eugene. Carson is a name I had loved forever, but it took me three boys to finally convince my dh to love it too! Eugene is after my husband's father who passed away when I was 4 months pregnant, coincidentally on the same day we found out that Carson was going to be a healthy baby (we had had a cause for concern). Strange how we each lost our fathers when I was pregnant. I think that's one of the reasons we decided not to have any more kiddos.

jamie cottrell said...
Kelly- I would love to see how one of your sketch pages start out. You encouraged me to start one but the white page scares me....how do get inspired for all your creative designs....and last how on earth do you do it with 3 active boys??????????
Sure, Jamie! Here you go.
On the left is my note page/sketch, on the right is the page that resulted from it. I hope that helps. I do a very very verrrryy stream-of-consciousness thing when I jot notes or start writing ideas. It's like my own personal brainstorming session.

As for inspiration, it's usually something in the picture or theme of the picture that gets me started. I'll start with tentative titles after I do the journaling/have journaling concept and then start playing with sketches, etc. I'm also inspired by things I see out in the world and in mags. Target seems to be a huge inspiration for me lately. I just did a Layout based on a pillow I saw the other day!

And finally, I function on VERY little sleep. I have the boys in bed at 8 or 8:30 in the summer and I'm usually up until about 1 am working. Other than that, I squeeze it in in nap times or if I have a pressing deadline whenever I can. This year, though, all three boys are going to be in some form of school, so I'll have a few mornings a week that are all mine. I have high hopes of being a little more productive. Um, yeah. We'll see how that goes!

Jana said...
Hmmm, I don't really have a question for you other than when are you coming to hang with me in Texas??! ;-)
I've always wanted to visit Texas! I've never been so tempt me! ;)

Jennifer Stewart said...
Ok, I have a really REALLY important question...

What do you do to keep in touch with your inner "girly side" with all of those boys in the house? :) I'm the only girl in my house, too, so I have lots of pink accessories in my scrapbook area. How do you girl it up? :)
Oh, wow! That's a really great question! I definitely "frilly up" my scrapping area though not in pink. My accents there are a vibrant red (though I'm sooo tempted to do the powder room up like yours! ;)) I think the thing I do most to add a bit of a feminine touch around here is fresh flowers. I have a garden and I love my roses and irises and lilacs. I bring them inside the house every chance I get.

Tonya said...
hi kelly...i love your work.. so here it goes.. what are you inspired from? you inpspiration? and when are you going to teach a class in jesup ga?...

Hi Tonya! I answered the inspiration question above with Jamie, but as for teaching a class in Jesup, they have to ask me first! I do promise though that for our next trip down south, I will do my best to coordinate a simultaneous class either there or in Savannah. Deal?

Debbie said...
Do you always go with your 1st gut instinct on a layout or do you change your mind frequently? lol Its a woman's nature, isn't it. haha

I think it's safe to say I do both. I sketch things out and jot down many ideas in my sketch book, so Id say I kind of evolve ideas. Sometimes things turn out like I initially see them in my head….other times they look entirely different once I run through all the options.

Tracey Odachowski said...
Hmmm...I have one...did you get any top secret phone calls today? Cuz if you entered, I'm rooting for ya!!!

LOL, Tracey! I didn't enter, but thank you for thinking I *could* have gotten called!

shan said...
hmmm ask Kelly anything...this could be fun :) lets see
Can you post your first page ever for us?
Hmmm, I could, but I don't know if I dare!!
Ok. I'll post my first ever page just for you. And I'll even give you a two-fer special….here are the TWO first pages I did. I'm not sure which came first but I'm pretty sure I did them both the same
weekend.
They were pages I did for Ethan's baby Album and I was SO stinkin' proud of them back in 2000. Well, at least I had a 'theme.' But note those fun star and circle shapes and that hand-journaling! Maybe I was really ahead of my time! lol

Did you have a mentor that helped you perfect your style?
No, not really. I have some good scrap booking friends and we would share work together so it really helped me challenge myself. When I entered MMM last year, I had a couple of gals (Angelia Wigginton, Jessie Baldwin, Nic Howard and Lisa VanderVeen) who critiqued my entry before I sent it off. Their help/input was invaluable.

and a non-scrap one. How did you hook up with your dh?
I used to work for his sister in Nashville. When dh got out of the service in Colorado, he wanted to get out of the small town he was from and so he moved in with her. She introduced us thinking we had a lot in common. I wasn't so sure about him but that night a huge ice storm had moved in (February of '94) and she was only a ½ mile from work so I crashed at her place. (tee hee) He apparently grew on me and we've been together ever since.

You know I love your work and I think your a great person too :) (Thank you!)

From Chrys:
a couple of questions:
What does your scrap room look like?
Well, it's a scrap closet really. I'm so not kidding. It's a 10x6 little space that I share with some old metal cabinets and our deep freeze! It's an olive green with red and black accents.

When do you find time to scrap?
Late at night mostly :)

How is Turner's speech going? (my son James is still behind, but has improved in the last year...but still has much more to go)
He's doing great, thank you for asking. He's a bit like James...vastly improved but still behind other children his age. I'd say we understand him about 85% of the time now, the general public still probably only about 60% or so. He's really working hard at it and school/therapy starts back in just a couple of weeks. We're all pretty excited about it. (And I keep reminding myself of something our therapist said...."it's a long road, but there are virtually no apraxic adults." :))

Are you going to Memory Trends?
I'm not sure. I'm shooting for CHA Winter in Anaheim, but if I can convince dh on both, then I will.

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Thank you again to everyone that participated. I really enjoyed your questions! :)