The 'Defining Moment' that catapulted me from the world of magnetic photo albums and word bubble stickers and into the realm of scrapbooking began 12 years ago when I visited North Carolina to see my one and only lovely sister Alethea who was scrapping her first pregnancy at the time. She shared her "album in progress" with me and with each page I became more excited and inspired to try my hand at creating an album that would share the legacy of my children's lifetimes.
I returned to PA with a scrapbooking magazine (snagged from my sister-not really she gave it to me...) and raced to Wal-Mart to print pictures and buy an album. I planned to take our students (Middle School Girls) shopping with me. I imagined they would enjoy helping me buy supplies of adhesive, paper and stickers so I could embark on the venture of creating a masterpiece like I saw in the magazines I had drooled over at least a dozen times.
Much to my chagrin the girls had misbehaved and were put on restrictions -unable to leave the student home. I was instantly crushed not only because we wouldn't learn to scrap together but because restrictions meant we could go no were and do nothing fun together. Restrictions were as miserable to me as it was to the students.
I sat pouting for nearly an hour adding insult to injury by looking through the magazine over and over and creating a shopping list of things I desired to have by post-it noting each page donned with beautiful papers and embellishments. Although at the time that meant flat stickers, die-cuts and ribbon if you weren't a novice like me. After my fourth trip through the magazine I had an 'aha' moment. I would scrapbook this weekend one way or another.
I grabbed my photos fresh from the printer at Wal-Mart, the funny edged scissors out of the student home art bin and with the white sheet of 12x12 paper that came in the sleeves of the album and some scotch tape I went to work! Twenty-two minutes later, viola! I had made my first scrapbook page ever!
How in the world did I make a page with those supplies? Well, I'll tell you all those magazine pages that were adds for all the amazing products that were available back then that I had marked with a post-it note became my products. Huh? I cut them out. Yes, that's right I cut out the papers in the ads and used those clippings to create a background for my page. Yes, there are 4 elements that are dimensional, (2 butterflies, a heart and a crown) but they were added after a shopping spree once we were off duty and had arrived home. The rest of the items you see on this page are from the magazine.
So, thanks to October Afternoon for inspiring this blog post. Are you inspired? Make a card, layout or altered item using supplies or a supply that wasn't originally intended for crafting and share it with us!
Blessings & Happy Scrappin',
Shantih @ The Zebra Files
