Saturday, April 2, 2011

Scrapbooking - The Next Generation


Oh my, where has the time gone to? I know I haven't posted in a while, but I didn't realize how long a while its been. I got sick in February and it seems to take forever to recover. I guess that is what happens when you reach my age. Also, there are a lot of changes going on here on the homefront, that has me kinda spinning my wheels. I hate change...I try to roll with it, but that doesn't always work. Just know, that as things changes, I try to keep the positive aspect in the forefront and not dwell on the negative.


Anyhow, what I have to share today is something so precious to me. I started teaching my granddaughter Deborah to stamp when she was about 3 years old. She loved to stamped. But that is all she would do. Just stamp images (good and bad) on a blank piece of cardstock. But this past weekend, she came to spend the day with me and she asked if we could do a scrapbook page. So, I handed my how to book, "Reflections" and asked her to pick out a layout that she would like to do. I was going to have her do the whole layout by herself (with a little bit of guidance from her Gamma). So, she found the layout she wanted to do. I asked her what pictures she wanted to scrapbook. That was too broad a question for her. But she definitely wanted to an "All About Me" page. So, I asked her what age would she like to scrap, which she said, "Gamma, I think the age of 4 would be perfect."


This is when you're thankful you took the time to organize all those photos. I have all my photos broken down by year, then month, then activity. So, Deborah and I took some time going through each month looking at all the pictures and the fun things we did back then. I think she enjoyed this part the best. We laughed at all the antics she and her brother Matthew did during that time. The pictures brought back some happy memories for her. That my friends, is what scrapbooking is all about!!!


Once the pictures were selected, I gave her free reign to select any papers she wanted to work with. But before she started pulling paper packs out, I asked her, what colors should she be looking for. Deborah is one smart cookie, let me tell you. Her reply was, "Since my shirt is pink, I need to find some pink paper, and there is some brown on my shirt as well, so I'll need some brown paper too. Oh and Gamma, I love flowers so I need to look for some papers with flowers on it." So as Deborah started pulling paper packs from my stash, I set up my photo-editing program on the computer. I printed out some "rough" 3"x4" pictures so we could see exactly how the pictures would go with the papers.


Deborah pulled 6 paper packs and we went through each one and she decided if she liked it or not. It was all a process of elimination at this point. Till it came down to two paper packs, "More To Adore" and "Life's Delight". She selected "Life's Delight".



What a learning experience this was for Deborah! She learned how to coordinate colors, which is really easy when working with Close To My Heart products. She learned how to "dummy up" a page before attaching anything to the page. She learned how to read a ruler, and how to use a cutter and how to read the measurements on the cutter. She learned how to distress the edges of the cardstock with ink. She decided on the picture placement of all the photos.


It was a fun filled day for both of us. And I so look forward to doing some more scrapbooking with my new found partner, Deborah!!
Thanks for letting me share.

Until next time...

Happy Scrappin'!

Leanne