It's Official

Hi there. My name is Noreen, and I am a SAHM. It became official last week when I received a letter granting me a parenting leave from my job with my school board. It was exhilarating as well as terrifying. Since graduating from University I have never been unemployed. I have always had my own money and been able to make my own decisions. I owned two homes before my husband and I met, and we still maintain separate bank accounts for daily use. But now, for the first time since living at home with my parents, I will be dependent on someone else for money. Yikes.

My hubbie has no issue with this...I am blessed that he works hard, owns his own business and makes a good enough salary that I can stay home with our two boys. He willingly gives me money each month to run the house and purchase whatever we need. I am the one who (to borrow from and mangle a phrase by author Virginia Wolf) needs to have a little money of her own.

I need it so I don’t feel I have to ask hubbie if I can buy that magazine or this blouse. I need it so I can blow it or save it as I see fit. I need it so I can feel like I am still contributing, even if it’s only in a small way. So, I needed to figure out a way to get that little money of my own.

Now over the years I have been involved with a few different direct sales companies – some profitable, some not so much. But I don't love hounding friends and family to do parties or making high pressure sales pitches. My background is teaching, not sales. But when my love of teaching combined with my love of scrapbooking, it seemed like a good fit to start a direct sales business with Creative Memories. I have been a CM consultant for 4 years now and I have really enjoyed being able to use my teaching and visual arts background to help ladies learn how to create simple scrapbook albums that celebrate and preserve their personal stories. But since I am not a high pressure sales gal, the monetary gains have not been stellar.

So, when hubbie and I decided I would stay home for a while, I thought long and hard about what I could do to work from home. I researched a lot of different WAHM websites and opportunities, but none of them seemed to fit me. I decided my best bet would be to take my love of teaching people to scrapbook and expand my business. So after a lot of thought, Sharing Memories Scrapbooking was born just a few months after my second son was.

It is really a hybrid business with multiple streams of income. I continue to sell Creative Memories scrapbooking products, but I also organize workshops, classes and retreats, design custom digital photocards, scrapbook for hire (completing albums for those who are not interested in scrapbooking themselves, but would like to have albums for their family) and maintain a content based SBI website that produces Adsense and affiliate income streams, and I plan on selling page and project kits on the site sometime later in 2009. While the income from each individual aspect of the business at this time is not huge, there is lots of potential for growth. And most importantly, I can do something I am passionate about from home while being there for my two little boys.

So my posts on this great new WAHMsPage blog will chronicle my adventures as I work at building up this business. I look forward to sharing with you and learning from the other WAHM’s posting here as well.