Yesterday I shared a picture of a 6x6 Christmas layout. That is where my “scrapping” started or rather what I call “album making”. I’m not a real scrapper. Real scrappers know how to use mists, chalk and do three dimensional pages. I just try to record some of the important stuff in my family’s life. The rest of the time I play!
Biologically I only have one child. About 5 years ago I wanted to see what we did every Christmas since we had him. (Luckily I didn’t start with my own because 47 is a lot of Christmases!) Anyway, even though we take a lot of pictures, I have them printed and put them into albums, I had 3 unaccounted years. I felt like a total failure because not only did I not have pictures, but I couldn’t even remember what we did. What is very nice about this exercise is that I actually had a great time in making a 6x6 mini album with every year’s Christmas pictures. How we changed, how he changed and most of all – all the fun we had.
My “blind side son”, Wernich came to stay with us about 10 years ago and when I started making albums to document our life, he wanted one as well. His mom died when he was 10 years old and even though we asked for pictures from family and friends, we couldn’t find even one with him and his mom. How sad is that. Anyway, at least we found some of him when he was small as well as a few of his mom. (I can count them on one hand) Today, Wernich is an architect and proudly shows off his album to family and friends and I keep it up to date by offloading pictures he shares on Facebook.
My husband’s mom and dad died a few years ago and when all the family treasures were divided, his childhood photo album vanished. He was devastated. So, once again I started begging and borrowing pictures and for his 50th birthday, I gave him a brand new, “old” childhood photo album.
There you have it, my motivation for recording my family’s history. People often ask me why I bother to buy expensive albums and develop my photos and my answer is always the same “I have heard of a lot of computers and external hard drives getting stolen / crashing but never of someone stealing photo albums”. Yes, they can be destroyed but they will also be the first things I take when I evacuate!
I have to go away on business for a few days but next time I will tell you how I have adapted my recording system to fit in with my hectic life.
Love and sunshine from South Africa
Hazel
PS. Lucky me won a seat in May’s Big Picture class on Monika Wright’s “I love it all” blog. Maybe I’ll become a real scrapper after all. Monika has also been so kind to send me instructions as how to do a link. Thanks Monika, you inspire me!
It's a pleasure to help...not too long ago I was where you are now! It's so comforting to hear how your family adores your creativity and keeping up the family albums!
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