Make room for my soapbox

Excuse me.

Yes, I mean you.

Move over just a little and give me room to get this soapbox set up.  I haven't been up on it for awhile and I have some "talking" to do and you need to hear me.

I have spent the last two days going through old family photos (the His not Hers).

You might remember that my reward for cleaning out my Father-in-law's place was the closet under the stairs with all the photos and scrapbooks that I had never seen? 

Since hubby is gallivanting on the other side of the world this week, I thought this was a perfect time to set up a couple of extra tables and start sorting and organizing all the "treasures" from the closet, plus a big box of family stuff an Aunt sent.

Oh my - lots of GREAT photos and family genealogy. 

But

and that is a big huge BUT

a lot of the GREAT photos are useless to me because the people in them are unidentified.

arghhhh

and while it is easy to identify the bug eyed man as great great great grandfather what's his name (I could pick those eyes out anywhere) serious looking old ladies with the same chin and nose start to run together....

and then there are the helpful ones with someone from several generations back cleverly identified as "mother"
Well, she isn't my mother and I don't know who wrote it so I am still out of luck

So my soapbox message is IDENTIFY the people in your photos.  I know that you know that is Aunt Lucy in last year's Christmas photo but you need to SAY SO on your layout, or on the photo or in your computer (wherever you are keeping your photos) because 75 years from now your grand children are going to wonder who the sexy blond standing next to grandpa is and you want them to know she is family not floozy!

If labeling ruins your layout or you just hate your handwriting do it on the back of the page!  But names and approximate dates are important.  PLEASE?

Today I'm taking Grandpa to lunch and I'll bring my big pile of photos with me in hopes he will recognize a few of them.

Wish me luck!

And if you have any awesome ideas for scrapping vintage and heritage photos, I'd love to hear them.

Old Days

Toga Man

Long Explanation Below

After several posts admitting how old and gray I am, I decided it is time to share a layout I did with photos from 25 years ago - pre gray days.

Let's do the math  (And even you gals that flunked algebra can follow this.....)

Ready?

Here is the equation:

Bad Photos + Good Memory = X

X = Scrapbook Layout

Therefore
Bad photos that bring back good memories should be used in your scrapbooks!!!

Here is my example

March 16 1985

We were newlyweds and renting a great house with horrid carpet

This gives us another good equation:  Large House + Bad Carpet = PARTY

March 16  fell on a weekend and was exactly half way between the Ides of March and St. Patrick's Day - What could we do except have an Irish-Toga Party? (this was the 80s ya know? - check out the leg warmers!)

Too busy partying to take many photos but someone got this shot of me in my "Irish" outfit and the really bad photo is a Polaroid of some of the guests raising their togas.  Other photos existed but I believe they were borrowed and destroyed by some of the attendees in the interest of career advancement.  It WAS a very fun night. 

Lessons:

The paper folded back is hiding a huge white blur on the polaroid photo - bringing your attention to those "sexy" legs (file that idea away if you have old photos - and be grateful that we have moved to the digital age where you don't have to mess with crummy photos like these)

Be careful cropping - I nearly cropped this photo closer to "me" but then I noticed that I am talking to a guy that is about 11 feet tall - I have no clue who he is but I decided I shouldn't crop him out - I might find out he is famous or infamous! (I told you it was a FUN party)

And the lesson you might really care about is How to Make Toga Man (just in case you decide to throw a toga party yourself)

Head – Owl – feet and ears cut off – (I guess the ears would be hidden by the hair)

Hair – Bat – upside down – head and feet snipped off with circle from itty bitty punch pack (or other small circle)

Eyes – small heart in white, tiny circle from owl in black

Nose – circle from itty bitty punch pack

Toga – wide oval – flat on bottom – shoulder snipped off with large circle (I think I grabbed the 1.75)

Chest – wide oval (just a piece)

Neck – word window

Arms and Legs – oval rings (large oval around small oval hole) snip off pieces you need

Hand – circle from itty bitty punch pack around tips of modern label

Feet – large circle from owl

Sandals – retired slot (can substitute thin strips from your trimmer)

I sponged some soft suede on his five o’clock shadow (no underage boys at this party)
Outlined pieces in black
Drew on mouth and a few lines on his toga to indicate folds in the “fabric”

This is certainly not one of my best scrapbook layouts, but I share it to show you that not everything has to be a masterpiece - you can make so-so layouts using bad photos and if it records a good memory you were a smart girl to record it. 

My girls got such a kick seeing this photo of me.  This layout has generated more joy than any of my "fancy" layouts that I'm so proud of.  Don't think every layout has to be "pretty".  

Name this Character

I couldn't decide on a name for this little miss - Polly Pencil?  Suzy Student?  Testing Tessa?  What do you think?  Any ideas out there?

This little punch art reminded me of my oldest (college girl now) when she learned to print (but longed to learn cursive). She would fill page after page of paper with her name, address, phone number, and lists of her favorite movies. She would fill pages and the next time would start over with those basic facts and alphabetize the movies again. I'm was never sure what her motivation was (I need to ask her now) but she entertained herself for long stretches of time and developed beautiful handwriting. Of course I kept one but didn't take a picture of her doing this. I'll remake "red" here to a brunette and add some glasses and this will replace the missing photo when I scrap this story.

Since I came to scrapping later in life and since digital photography didn't exist for much of my life (or my children's lives), there are many tales I want to tell but no photographs to match the story.

One great solution is to journal the story and just include another photo of your subject.  For example, you want to tell about Grandma's housekeeping quirks but you certainly don't have a photo of her cleaning.  You just tell the story, and add any picture you have of Grandma. 

My friend Virginia, who is my volunteer assistant when I teach card classes at the local woman's club, just started a 6x6 recipe collection and she has a picture of Granddad on his salad recipe - it is perfect!

What story do you NEED to tell that doesn't have a photo?  Even if you aren't a scrapbooker, think of one and go write it down in a spiral notebook.  Someone will treasure it when you are old and too crazy to remember - and based on my brain lately that could be sooner than you think!

Old Crow back on the Soapbox

Thought I'd show the page for my BOM that was created because I had to make another crow the other day to show y'all how. (Oh! The things I suffer for you!)

It seems foreign to make a 12 x 12 page with just one little photo - having the rest be journaling and embellishments - but that is what happens when you don't have many photos of yourself.



This photo only exists because when I started working on my BOM I grabbed my camera and walked around my house one day snapping photos of me - you can tell that is what I did by my arm.



There aren't that many photos of me when I was young because that was looooooong before the digital age and if your family even took the picture, the odds were your eyes were closed or your hair looked stupid or there was a pole behind you that looked like it was growing out of your head. Of course you didn’t know if you had a good or bad photo until weeks (months) later when the roll of film was finally finished and you had it developed.



There aren’t many photos of me now that I’m not young because I don’t like them. I do not, nor have I ever, nor do I ever expect to feel like I am photogenic. And I regret that. Yes, I do regret that I’m not photogenic but what I mean is that I REGRET not letting my husband and others take more pictures of me.



Here comes that silly soapbox again. Huff… puff….groan…creak. Ok, I’m up here…



WE NEED TO BE IN MORE PHOTOS. I know you are 35 (or some other number) pounds overweight. Or you don’t like your nose. Or your chin (or eyelids or rear end) sags. Or your complexion looks like some food besides peaches and cream. Or your hair needs a trim (or a color or a root job). Or you have that scar. Or whatever your own reason is. BUT you still need to be in more photos.



You need photos of you if you are 20, 30, or 40 something because no matter what is “wrong” now – trust me, when you are 50 something, you will look back and realize how beautiful you really were. And if you are 50 plus you have (or soon will) realize things are not likely to get better so you better record it NOW before it gets worse (LOL). Your family will TREASURE photographs of you with all your imperfections. Don’t you want to give them this gift?



And if you don’t let someone take photos – how will you have that “before” picture to go with the stunningly beautiful “after” picture? You know – the one you will take that day when you wake up at your ideal weight, with an amazing complexion on a great hair day?!?



I confess that I am really writing this soapbox speech to myself as well as to anyone reading this. We just returned last month from an anniversary trip and I only let my hubby have the camera once in four days. That is right – I am in ONE photo. Not because he didn’t offer but because I saw how fat I looked in that first photo and didn’t want anymore. This is a stupid vain way to think and I know you are just as guilty of it.



Here is my promise to myself. When someone has a camera and they point it in my direction there will be no dodging and no threatening them with harm. I will just smile! (And raise my eyebrows; I am convinced that helps hide the crow’s feet.)

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!!

It is all about YOU!

I'm really excited about this weekend on SplitcoastStampers - they are having a virtual scrap book night - and it is all about ME!  Look HERE!  Oh no, I guess I interpreted that wrong,  it is all about YOU, too!

There will be series of challenges issued and they will involve scrap booking about ourselves. Oh girls, this is a subject that gets me stacking my soapboxes on top of each other so I can climb up and shout "DO IT!"

We spend hours scrapping birthdays and vacations and gardens and what Junior wore on Halloween and Sissy's dance recital but do you know what will have REAL meaning to your kids?  Layouts about YOU!

Think about it..... What would you give to have some details about your grandmother's day to day life?  Wouldn't you love to know what your Mom's favorite things were when she was 35 - what she was interested in? (After all, you were just a kid then, too busy with your own self to pay attention to her).

I think your children (and theirs) will treasure having that kind of information about YOU.  So don't leave yourself out of your scrap books.  In fact, make one just about you.  Start a Book of Me (BOM).  I have one.  I intended to make 50 pages while I was 50 but wound up only making half of that.  My "revised" goal is 50 pages during my fifties (much more do-able).

Here is a layout I did during that initial BOM project  =====>>>>> 

No, there is no picture of me - that is my childhood dog.  But a lot of "me" is in that journaling.  What a simple, simple page - yet it tells the story that I wanted recorded.  And looky there - I managed to use punches on it! (I am a punch-a-holic and I do NOT want any 12 step programs to cure me.)

So I will be poking about on Splitcoast this weekend - finding inspiration from the challenges to get back to my BOM.  Please consider trying this - you are leaving out a critical subject if YOU aren't in your scrap books!  And come back next week to see if I actual got any layouts about ME done.