Tag Archives: birthdays

Drought broken

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A scrapbooking drought, that is.

It’s been a while since I made any scrapbook layouts, but two sources from the web have inspired me to get out the photos, paper and glue once again. The first is from And Now for Something Completely Different, a series being offered by Shimelle Lane at UkScrappers.co.uk. I had been aware of her Glitter Girl series (as she generously duplicates this on her own website), but only found the ANFSCD series by accident. Here is my take on her March instructions (which you can find here):

This is quite different from my usual style and it’s not something I would have tackled without the step-by-step instructions. I like it though!

The second source of inspiration for my recent scrapbooking productivity has been a class at TwoPeasinaBucket.com – Scrapbook Stamper’s Workshop with Jen Gallacher. There are five sets of 10 lessons, each set comes with a video showing the techniques, and a detailed pdf that you can print out for reference at the scrapdesk. At US$25 the class is good value. While there’s no expectation that every lesson will spark a LO, I have used the first two today, and made these:

The first one uses photos from 2009, when I took my great-niece to a store to choose beads and make a necklace for herself. Her joy in creating something that she could immediately put on and wear was infectious, as you can probably tell from my grin. The class lesson I have applied here is the use of embossed stamps on vintage book paper. I used Jen’s lesson LO as a sketch too. My friend and fellow-Scrapmate Mandy gave me some washi tape to try, and and I have used one of the samples on the layout.

The second layout uses stamps to create the fun tag in the centre of the banner. Other than transposing the journalling and title, I have pretty much followed Jen’s example. The photos are from a combined birthday celebration back in 2005 – so good to have them scrapped at last (and to re-live the fun memories of that day while I trimmed the photos and put the tag together).

One thing the class has already shown me is that I have only a limited range of stamps. I have a few journalling blanks, an alphabet or two, some flowers and butterflies, several sentiment stamps (for card-making) and a set of flourishes. Lesson 3 suggests using stamps to create embellishments – but unless I’m making a layout about the garden, my collection falls a bit short. Do you agree that I need to go shopping?!

 

Time is a Bullet Train

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This blue-eyed cutie is Edward on his first birthday, way back in March 1992.

Roll on 20 years, and suddenly (so it seems) here he is on his 21st birthday:

Time sure speeds along, so much faster than I ever thought possible. I have forgotten so much about Ed’s early years and I can never go back and recapture the memories. I am thankful for photographs and the recall of others, but how I wish I had written down more of the stories of his toddlerhood and primary school years to go with the photographs I have – and for all the daily events for which there are no pictures at all.

I am so glad I have diaries from 2002, and that I have made scrapbook pages documenting our lives from then onwards. The stories are as important as the photographs – so if you are hesitant about writing things down, please don’t be! Do it – either in a physical diary or using an on-line service such as OhLifeI or DailyDiary. Make notes on your calendar, scribble in a notebook – but please help your memory out, because in 20 years you won’t remember the things you wish you did.