If you are new to “Chris’s Inspirations”, this is a blog about my journey as a “young” 73 year old retired educator. I focus on a healthy lifestyle and wellness, the travels of my hubby and me, healthy recipes and what inspires and motivates me. I share my many insights on life as well as my passions. Come along and follow me on my many adventures and hobbies.
One of my passions, no matter what time of year, is to scrapbook. I got started in scrapbooking 16 years ago when I was still an elementary principal. One day, a teacher friend came into the office to show my secretary and me her current scrapbook project. It was beautiful. I thought to myself, ‘I can do that.’ It was a smaller version of all the fun bulletin boards I created when I taught school. I couldn’t wait to get started.
I decided my first project was going to be a 40th anniversary gift for my husband. At the time, we were renting a small two-bedroom house. All of our photos were in albums that were stored in boxes in the smaller of the two bedrooms. In such a small space, I had to secretly haul out the albums, go through forty years of photos and work in secret on the pages. I looked in scrapbook magazines to get ideas and worked from there. Pretty soon I was able to develop my own pages and had fun being creative with my layouts. What began as that gift has developed into a passion. Ultimately, I needed two large albums but my husband loved them. After those first two albums, I decided to continue to chronicle our life through my scrapbook pages. We have since moved and purchased our own home. I have a craft room just for my hobbies. We celebrated our 50th anniversary in April of 2019 and I have currently completed seven albums and am working on number eight.
There are many other scrapbook projects I have also completed. In 2008, my three sisters and I rented a cottage for a weekend get-together. We figured the four of us had never been alone together since we had gotten married. It was such a fun time. As a gift, I made a special smaller scrapbook for each of them that highlighted our family heritage and childhood memories.
In June of 2009, we attended a family reunion that we hadn’t been to in years. I made a very special scrapbook for that occasion. It was full of old photos, news clippings, obituaries, etc. about our grandparents. It also included a few pages about each of their children (my parent and aunts and uncles) and of all the cousins. It was a great historical documentary for the younger members of our family.
We have four adult children. On their 40th birthday, I gave each of them a scrapbook of their life. One of our sons said it was the best gift he had ever received. I am currently working on one that will chronicle my husband’s years before we met.
If you are of my generation, you remember when a scrapbook album was made out of cream-colored construction paper-like pages. After our honeymoon, I put our photos and mementoes into one of those, using scotch tape. Last spring, I turned what was in there into a proper scrapbook with proper acid free paper and photo corners. I took the original things I had written and typed them up. I also added embellishments. It is no longer hidden away in a drawer but visible to look at any time we want.
One of my favorite scrapbooks is the one I made for myself. I spent one year between retirements as the Head of School of an awesome charter school. We were forced to close as we lost our building. I made this album for me, which is filled with a year of memories we made while I was there.
My scrapbooking has expanded to more than chronicling memories. The same friend that inspired me to scrapbook gave me a beautiful handmade card for my birthday one year. Using her card as a pattern, I created my own Christmas cards one year and have ever since. I am always excited to design the card for the coming year. From Christmas cards it expanded to making all of my own greeting cards. I have fun creating the design and personalizing each card for the person who will receive it.
Where do I get so many of my ideas? In the beginning, it was from scrapbook magazines, books and on-line businesses. Then along came Pinterest. I have a special board I have set up that includes all the scrapbook ideas others share. Sometimes, I just look back at some of my favorite pages I have created and use them as inspiration. Recently I purchased a book full of page layouts. When I am stuck trying to come up with a layout, all I have to do is look in the book.
Scrapbooking requirements are simple: you need photos, you need to use acid free paper and adhesives, a ruler and a really sharp pair of scissors. Getting scrapbook supplies is easy. A lot of my albums, papers, adhesives and embellishments I pick up at Walmart. We are fortunate that we also have a store not far from where we live that specializes in scrapbook supplies. I also buy some of my paper packs on Amazon.com. My children often give Mom scrapbook supplies for Christmas and my birthday. You can start out simple and small and expand from there. I try to keep the costs down and do not own many of the fancy tools that some really serious scrappers have, but that isn’t necessary to make a good layout.
This year, I am trying something new. I have a sister-in-law who does not scrapbook and somehow thinks she isn’t very creative. A friend of hers is getting her started on junk journaling. I had not heard of this so did some research on-line and on Pinterest. Now I am hooked on a new format to express myself. A junk journal is, “a book which is often made through found and recycled materials. You use it to record memories, ideas, inspirations and thoughts.” Do you ever find cool quotes or cute pictures in magazines that you like? A junk journal is the perfect way to save those little items. Mine cost me almost nothing. I had an old hard cover diary I had logged food in once. I took out the pages, embellished the cover and added my own pages. Now it will be ready for me to decorate the pages as I see fit and write in it whatever I choose and whenever I want.
Something else I am trying this year is a smash book. The difference between a smash book and a junk journal is very minimal. A smash book is, “a journal/book that you can write in, draw in, glue in embellishments or save memorabilia as you are on the move.” I found a small hard cover book in a thrift shop for $1.99. I again took out the pages and added my own. I embellished the cover and have the pages ready for when we head South for the winter. I can add things as we go along. I can’t wait. UPDATE on my smash book. I have been using it on our trip to warmer weather and it is a smashing success.
If you want to learn more about how I scrapbook, I am putting together a short instructional video in the near future. It will take you through the steps of creating a simple scrapbook page. Look for it on my blog…
SCRAP AWAY and remember, “Don’t save today for tomorrow.”
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