Eighteen and a half years ago, my mother brought me over a memory photo kit that she had purchased at Michael's. Our son was only about six months old and I had just gone back to work. I had always been an artsy-fartsy, crafty type my whole life, even as a child and it certainly continued into adulthood. I was always working with some type of medium, whether it be sewing, drawing, calligraphy, stained glass, ceramics and cross-stitch AND I had always had scrapbooks, so my mom thought I'd have fun with it.
Little did she know that she awakening a sleeping giant.....LOL
I fell head over heels in love with the craft of scrapbooking. I liked that I was actually doing something with the photos I was taking and it was satisfying the creative side of me also.
I started at a table in our attic, then I took over the dormer in our attic and here I am almost 19 years later with a small craft room to call my own. I don't even want to try and estimate the amount of supplies I've had over the years, but I think that comes with the territory of having a hobby...hoarding supplies. :)
I've never stuck with a hobby other than reading longer than I have scrapbooking.....going on 19 years and in that time I've done 30 scrapbooks, 26 mini albums, 12 specialty albums and countless gifts for friends and family......I would have to say an estimate of scrapbook pages would be around 1500!
As everyone else, the way I scrapbooked changed over the years also.........I laugh and laugh when I look back to those first years of pages, but I wouldn't change them for the world.
Here's a page from the early days of Connor's 1st birthday and the cake we let him "explore"....so much fun!
When Connor was little, he loved snakes and had lots of stuffed snakes he liked to sleep with. Here's a page a did with a favorite photo commemorating the memory.
That was during the time I was still doing an 8.5 x 11 format....I think I changed over to 12 x 12 a few years later.....I needed more paper real estate to work with...lol
Here's a page I did of Connor's first six birthday cakes. Back then I matted EVERY STINKING PHOTO of my pages, some more than one layer....do you know how long that takes? I finally got over that obsession with matting photos and now I rarely do it....
I've been organizing some of my photo CDs and DVD's and I came across a bunch of things I forgot I had. Here's some photos of my first craft space. This is in the finished attic of our first home. It was cozy and in the winter time I loved looking at that window at the snow falling. Connor had a play area on the other side of the attic and Fred's computer desk was up there too.....lots of evenings with the three of us, up there playing.
It was located in the dormer of our finished attic and it's fun to see what I was using a decade ago. My craft space has certainly morphed over the years and once I get it back in shape, I'll share my space as it is currently.
Another thing about this craft that makes it more special and important than previous hobbies and crafts and that is the friends that I have made through scrapbooking, both in real life and even online friends. My scrapbook friends are amazing, smart women and my life has been enriched by knowing all of them. Even if I was to ever choose to not do this hobby any more, the friendships I've made would still continue and for that I'll always be grateful to the craft.
More to come.........
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