Daddy's Girl on her Soapbox

This is the last layout from the Splitcoast challenges that I completed (it was a busy Saturday).  I have all week to finish the challenges if I'm playing by the rules (and I am) so you might see more BOM layouts.  This challenge was to use a photo of yourself as an infant or toddler AND as an adult AND include a flower that you made yourself.

What I love about this simple little layout, besides my Daddy, is that my Mom had saved a dopey poem I had written as a Girl Scout (age 10) and I know this because I have it in her very own handwriting on the front of the index card.  Good job Mom!   And I'd recognize her handwriting anywhere.  A reminder to me to include my handwriting in my scrap booking (even though I hate it).

Technical info:  done on retired River Rock paper and the rub-ons are from the Paper Studio. The flower is the Build a Flower die and I used a jumbo brad (I just love these big ol' brads - they make me happy).

Make room now, I'm dragging my soapbox over here and climbing up again.  "Oh geez Ellen - again?  So soon?".....  Yes!  (clattering, and grunting noises here - as I get up on the box)  This layout is a perfect example of why I hate chronological scrapping.    If I scrapped chronologically I could never have put these two matching photos together - they were taken almost 30 years apart. 

My memories are not chronological - they are rattling around randomly in my little brain.  They are brought to the front by music, scents, conversations, events and happenings.  They are not neatly filed away under all this gray hair.  So why should I have to record them in my books "in order"?  Well, the answer is, I DON'T HAVE TO!  Making the decision to scrapbook randomly (and put them in albums randomly) has been one of the best things to happen to my crafting.

I still keep a chronological Christmas album so you can see the girls grow up (and the house decor change) as time progresses.  But in the rest of my albums you might see my brother's 40th birthday followed by a Thanksgiving layout from 3 years later, chased by a park playday from 12 years prior.  As long as I record the date on the layout - does it matter where it is in the book?  I scrap more knowing that I can work on whatever, whenever I want.  I still have my younger daughter's chronological kindergarten book - unfinished - stuck on the Cinderella Ball.  I had no inspiration and I stopped working on it.  She is a Junior in high school.  If I scrapped chronologically there would be no more layouts about her. Ever.  Or at least until I went back and conquered my Cinderella issues.

I still give vacations their own albums and I still create themed albums for gifts but all my Children and Family and BOM pages are random, mixed up and make me wonderfully happy.

If you ever feel the constrictions of chronological scrapping consider giving it up.  You have my blessing and my encouragement and my full support.

Mix it up!  And enjoy your Sunday!!