My New Gig: Heritage Makers

So I have started a business as a Independent Personal Publishing Consultant for a company called Heritage Makers. It is a digital storybooking company. In a nutshell, we sell products, such as books, cards, calendars, etc. where people can display pictures and record their family stories. It is like Shutterfly... on steroids. Basically you can create really unique products using the online Studio that provides thousands of backgrounds, borders, etc or you can use the really attractive templates. But the twist with Heritage Makers is that they emphasize telling the stories with pictures, so that instead of being just a photo album, it is a story book. There is no character limit as with other online photobooks.

So how and why did I decide to do this? Pretty simple.

First of all, we have thousand of pictures sitting on our hard drive of our trips and kids. I've been wanting to make some albums, to show off some of our travels and of course to document Jacob and Mia's childhood. They love looking at pictures in the two places we have them in the house... our calendar and on the refridgerator. I also wish I could take this blog and make it an album so Jacob and Mia could look through it because it has basically documented our lives for the past three years. Well, a friend in my local twins club is a consultant for Heritage Makers and she introduced me to it. At first I just wanted the products, but then (which leads me to another reason I decided to start this business) since we need a supplemental income (since I am not going back to teaching just yet), I decided to become a consultant. I get to work from home, except for the workshops at people's homes 1-2 times a week. I set my own hours and can work as much or as little as I want. Doing the workshops is easy as it is basically teaching people about our products, documenting their stories, and using the online studio. This is like teaching. The hard part is getting the contacts, which involves talking with random people and telling them about what I do.

So far, I have made two books, which Jacob and Mia love and Jimmy thinks are really cool. The first is the story of Jacob and Mia's first year. I used the blog to help me when I created this book. J and M love being read this story and looking at the pictures. The second is an ABC book. For each letter of the alphabet is a picture of Jacob and/or Mia doing something, such as g is for gymnastics or d is for drawing. Again, they love it especially because they really into the ABCs.
I am currently working on two other projects: Safari in South Luangwa National Park and a Grandparents' Life Story about my parents. This summer I am going to interview my Grandparents who in their 90s and scan photos from their albums to make a Great Grandparent's Life Story. It is something I have been thinking about doing for a long time and am really excited because Heritage Makers has story maps and templates which will make it really easy to do.

Check out my website...www.bindingmemoriesonline.com