I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in southeastern Michigan. I liked to say that I was bilingual; I could speak northern and southern!  I attended Michigan State University and met my husband during the summer between my junior and senior years while visiting Chattanooga, Tennessee. We were married in 1981 and will celebrate our 39^th anniversary this fall.

Our first year of marriage we lived just outside of New Orleans. Having grown up in Michigan, Louisiana felt like a foreign country. Much more foreign than Canada, where I spent lots of time. After New Orleans, Doug’s employer transferred him to Up State New York. We lived halfway between Lake Ontario and Syracuse for nearly a decade.

All three of our children arrived while we were in New York. Aaron arrived shortly before our fourth anniversary, and Bethany followed just over two years later. Three years after that we received a surprise package in the form of Ian.

We moved to Aiken, South Carolina in February of 1991. We arrived with a five year old, a three year old, and a two month old! Aiken has been our home ever since. It has been great place to raise a family and for the children (and the parents) to be involved in local groups and activities. All three danced, played sports, and played instruments while growing up. We were a major band family. My two older children attended the College of Charleston, and Ian attended the Art Institute in Atlanta. My older two children are both married to wonderful people and we have three darling grandchildren that we adore.

I first began paper crafting after attending the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. A friend was a Creative Memories consultant and pulled a group of us into scrapbooking. Over the years my scrapbooking style developed, and I started card making. I have been a paper crafting blogger since 2008 (http://spartansusscraper.blogspot.com/, though I have been very sporadic in the last two years. I ran a weekly paper crafting Design Team for six years and was a paid designer and blogger for Custom Crops for several years.

In 2014 my mother moved in with us due to her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s. She lived with us for five years and passed away last year. While attending the annual Stamp Art tour in Columbia in 2019, where I had first met my Stampin' Up! Demonstator a number of years earlier, I started thinking about changes I wanted to make in my life now that my time was my own again. In March of 2019 I transitioned from customer to joining Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator. It is one of the best decisions I have made. The friendships and relationships built through Stampin' Up! are transformational!