Soulology Project Online Course Design Team Bio - Claire Daly

Today, I'd like to introduce you to another of the AWESOME members of the Design Team that I've put together for the Soulology Project Online Scrapbooking Course.

Today's Design Team Spotlight is on Claire Daly.

I was trying to remember how it was that I first found Claire's blog online and I seem to think it was that she was featured on Susanna Boyd's blog: Card of the Week , for one of the Scrapbook Pages of the Week.  I remember seeing one of Claire's scrapbook pages and being totally transfixed. Her style reminded me so much of my own and the journaling that she included on her layouts was raw, open and honest. I've been following Claire's work ever since. When it came time to put together a team of talented designers for this course, I knew Claire had to be on it and I was so pleased when she said, "Yes!"

Claire has the unique capability of being able to meld to any style......she's all over the place and I love that about her. She can create a clean-lined layout and then a completely free-style layout, while next she'll come up with something very classic and vintage.

I asked Claire to share a little about herself so you can get to know her.

In her words:

I was always going to be a scrapbooker, it just hadn’t found me yet. As a child one of my fondest memories is family trips to the Coles Variety store in the Hay St Mall in Perth where I would be beside myself with excitement about two things – visiting the stationery department with it’s pretty papers, notepads and pens; and visiting the café for rolled crepes with jam and cream!

We finally discovered each other after I had my first baby in 2002, after three difficult years of trying to conceive. One of the Mums bought along an album to Mum’s group when my son was just 6 weeks old and a megawatt light bulb went off in my head. I had so much in my head I wanted to say about this little man who had entered my life, and to process the long journey that had bought me to this point. This was to be my vehicle for that self expression. I politely excused myself early from Mum’s group and went straight to the shop she had told me about and signed up for a beginners class.

Scrapbooking is SO much about the journaling to me. I want to record the moments, the feelings, the beliefs so one day my children will understand who I really am from the inside out. I want to record the raw emotion so it is not lost forever, and I want to use the journaling as a form of self expression to help me navigate the journey of my life. Scrapbooking has been a form of therapy through many difficult times in my life – another IVF pregnancy, postnatal depression and tragic road accidents that have claimed those I love. When I need to nurture and heal – I retreat to my scrapbooking.

I’m really excited to be sharing the journey of the Soulology Project Online Scrapbooking Course with you all. It is so me, and I know that each of you will be a different person for coming on this amazing journey with us.

I asked Claire to share one of her layouts with us. She also shared the journaling that goes along with it.

Journaling:

I didn’t know where to start to write all this down. I just knew I didn’t want the page to be pretty because the subject is far from pretty. My family has been touched by the road toll. Not once, not twice but three times. First my Dad, killed instantly in a pedestrian accident at 65 years old, in May 1996. Then my brother Ian who became a Quadriplegic following a car accident I August 1997, and died 9 years later in September 2006, aged just 49. Then the third, my nephew Daniel, another spinal injury in September 2007.

It still seems totally unbelievable and even more unfair that could happen to one family. You can’t help asking yourself what our family has done to deserve all this? Is there some kind of curse? How much more can one family take. It rocks you to the very core of your being. Your optimism, your beliefs, your security about life and the previous beliefs you had that bad things don’t happen to good people. I can’t even begin to imagine (and I pray with all my heart I will never get to know) what it feels like to be person who has the accident (if they survive) but the ripple effect reaches wide and the families and  friends are all affected as well. To watch those I love so much to go through something this painful is so hard. There is grief, there is anger, there is still disbelief. People don’t know what to say. Some people say nothing. Can you blame them? I can’t cope with as much, I don’t tolerate as much and the little things people complain about seem so insignificant that some days I just want to scream to them to shut up. I can’t imagine what it’s like for those closer, but this is about me getting out how I feel because my head can’t hold it all in anymore.

How am I supposed to let my own boys out on the road when I have been through all this? How will I not lay awake until they are safely home? How will I not drive them crazy and myself with my anxieties about road trauma? I see the way people drive, the way they are impatient and careless and I just want to shake them and give them a glimpse of what our family has seen. To tell them that my family has been touched by the road toll and that we will never ever be the same again. (Journaled 26th September 2008, the day before the 1 year anniversary of Daniels accident).

Claire's raw and open style of journaling is going to be a big asset to the Design Team!

The "Soulology Project" Online Scrapbooking Course is getting close to full, but you can still get in if you hurry!

If you've been thinking about taking this course and you want to create a scrapbook that reflects and showcases many different parts of the UNIQUE person that you are, make sure to check out the course information and register today!

Click here to find out more ---> The Soulology Project Online Scrapbooking Course

Comments

[Susanna]

Awesome!! I do think Claire is the BOMB!

[Le@nne (Scrapshare)]

I'm sorry for your road toll tragedies. But was truly moved by your journalling. TFS