Nothing SIMPLE about it...

Yesterday I learned of the passing of a friend - well at least that is how is feels. You know the kind of kick in the gut that knocks you off your feet and leaves you lying there dazed and confused.

I have admitted that I kind of stalk Stacy Julian founder of Simple Scrapbooks and author/teacher extraordinare so when she alluded to getting some bad news there was concern. Yeah I only met her in passing last year at the MemoryWorks Retreat but I felt like I knew her. You see when I started scrapping I had people try to 'help' me by wanting me to put more stuff on my pages and I let them cause what did I know. And then I picked up an issue of Simple Scrapbooks and learned what I wanted to do was OK - really really OK. Letting my photos and their stories shine through my simple pages wasn't a bad thing I mean they had a whole magazine telling me this.

Through the years I've read it, subscribed to it and cherished it and all involved with it (just look at the blogs I follow many have some connection to Simple). I embraced my 'simpleness' and ran with it. I can acknowledge the beauty of some of the more elaborate LOs in some other mags but I always wonder is there a photo and story in amoung that stuff?

Yesterday it was announced that Simple Scrapbooks as we know it will cease publication as we know it with the May/June issue. There have been assurances that Creating Keepsakes will embrace Simple and make it a part of them but honestly I have rarely picked up an issue of CK as it seems to be all about the stuff and although I am sure they will try I am not holding my breath that it will be done in a manner that makes me want to lay out $$ for it.

So last night and today I, and many many others, am mouring the passing of a friend who knew who I was and loved me anyway. Who was not afraid to stand up and in this busy world full of stuff say SIMPLE is OK! Who led many scrappers, newcomers and some not so new alike, down a road of embracing who they are and being OK with telling their stories without all the 'stuff' - showing us that the bells and whistles could come from inside of us through our journaling.

Simply put there was nothing SIMPLE about Simple Scrapbooks.

I wish all the best to all who are involved with Simple Scrapbooks in the new ventures that lay before them and I take some solace in the fact that we still have Big Picture Scrapbooking to enrich our lives and help us embrace our 'simpleness'.

Jay suggested I pick up a couple of extra copies of the last few issues - I think I may just do that and frame them to hang in my scrap room for that one last bit of SIMPLE inspiration.