Jimmie has received the title of “Queen of All Minibooks” because of her educational creations. I’ve decided to feature other homeschoolers who have found or created work from home positions to help inspire others to create a Financial Plan B for themselves.  Since I’ve developed a love affair with lapbooks I thought it was appropriate to re-introduce Jimmie and her creations to the world.

I met “The Queen of All Minibooks” at The Homeschool Lounge where great mompreneurs can be found. I was unfamiliar with lapbooks and just discovering notebooking so finding Jimmie’s profile was a godsend for me.

I was fascinated by the work of her daughter, Sprite. Jimmie and Sprite create beautiful notebooks, lapbooks and minibooks that relate to the lessons that they’re learning. Little did I know that my new friend already had the honorary title of “The Queen of All Minibooks. I am very honored that she agreed to talk about her work and her life in China.

Jimmie is an example of a mom who pursues her passions and allows here passions to pay her back. She’s a perfect example of how to merge homeschooling with a business. And best of all, her daughter helps create her samples!

“The Queen” Explains All

So how did Jimmie become “The Queen of all Minibooks”? Well, here’s her story:

“My first lens was Lapbooking. (Lapbooking is a bit hard to define concisely. It is a learning product made of miniature books that are put together into a comprehensive project.) To be totally honest, it was all for myself. I wanted a place to store all the links I had for minibooks, folds, lapbook pictures, how-tos, Yahoo groups, and blog entries. There was no ONE website that had the best of the best in an attractive, organized format. I wanted a reference tool that would be easy to use and navigate when I needed something specific.

Squidoo lenses looked like just what I needed to create my lapbooking reference page. So, I created my first lens: all my lapbooking ideas, tips, and links in one convenient spot.

I never dreamed that my Lapbooking lens would become so popular. I shared it on my blog and in the Carnival of Homeschooling. It started to rise in lensrank.

It ranked as high as THREE at one time stayed in the top 100 for months and months. WOW! (For those of you who don’t know, there are over 500,000 lenses at Squidoo!) The ironic thing is that in the beginning, I had no idea how amazing it was for my newbie lens to be ranked so highly. I had found a niche! I had found a topic that needed to be written about! I was not the only one who liked to see all the lapbooking links organized on one page.

Over many months, as I honed my lensmaking skills (mostly through the SquidU forum and some wonderful HTML lenses out there), it just got better and better.

I started getting compliments via email and comments. People asked me for lapbooking advice. People started linking to my page and saying it was great. (Blushing, here) I was asked to speak at a homeschool conference about lapbooking! (I couldn’t go, but, wow, was I flattered!) Now my lens is in the process of being translated into French by a homeschooling mom in France!”

And thus the Queen of Minibooks was born. Jimmie took her love of learning and has helped others with her curriculum creations. Creating informational sites like Jimmie’s can be used as a launching point for a curriculum business, ebook creation and a lot more.

So, where does your passion lie? Could you turn your knowledge and interests into a source of additional income? You’ll never know until you try.