I must admit, certain pictures strike me at certain times. There is no rhyme nor reason; maybe it is the paper at the store that I can see working with them. I have a ka-jillion pictures to scrapbook. The majority of them right now are older pictures that I NEED to get down before I forget "who, what, where, when, why . . ." Sometimes it is not about "winning a prize" or "blowing everyone's mind" for me . . . it is doing what I enjoy: picking paper and embellishments, enjoying my time with my pictures, getting down the information I want to get down while the therapy of working with my hands, mind and creativity bring peace to my crazy life. My wish for everyone who scrapbooks is: to enjoy scrapbooking for yourself, not trying to "top" your last page. If you do come up with an amazing page . . . good! I see it all the time at the store -- just don't make it run/ruin your love of scrapbooking.
This was one of those pages that just happened. I decided to ride my bike to visit my dad. I was going over the overpass at Preston Crossing and realized that it would be fun to chronicle my bikeride. So, I held my camera and took some pictures as I rode. I decided that Saskatoon is a beautiful city in the spring. I smelled the blossoms everywhere. After my 20 minute ride to see dad, I rode my bike across the University Bridge, down Spadina and back over the Old Train Bridge. I found myself smiling to myself. I was thoroughly enjoying my time alone, exercising and snapping photos of my day.
When Faith came home from work for supper for Mother's Day this year, she came just in time to eat. She walked in with a huge bouquet of flowers. I opened them and realized she really knew what kind of flowers I like or she has the same taste as me. I had to take some pictures of them. The tulips are on my header for my blog and the roses are the background for my computer screen. I had to do a page as well, to document a really nice Mother's Day gift. I sent her copies for her computer and she agreed -- they are gorgeous.
You don't find many pages like this done of me by me. Lately, I have been a bit disappointed in the trends of scrapbooking. It seems like the "most impressive" pages are of large professional photographs with thoughtful, reflective journaling. While there is always a place for these, I find myself out in another field because I scrapbook day to day occurances. This page was a challenge at the store -- to do a page about ourselves. I decided to do this page for one reason really: after Trina (a friend and fellow scrapbooker who many of you know and love) passed away, I realized that I haven't made any pages for my children about me. I do pages of who everyone else is. I have done many heritage albums and what I am always looking for and writing to relatives for is to ask: "Ya, I know when they lived, where they lived and what they did for a living; but . . . what were they like, who were they?" I wanted my children to have a few pages of me, saying what I like, what I think about and who I am. This is one of a few I have done lately.
I don't think anyone will ever forget Sky's performance in her Grade 7 play. She had to be a "spazzy" Chickenlittle". The moment she set foot on stage, everyone burst into laughter. Then, when she started squawking her lines in a hysterical way, the audience lost it. She was suppose to run around the audience and squawk at them, but the stairs weren't put out so she couldn't get off the stage. After the play, everyone commented on Chickenlittle being the hit of the play. She was hilarious. I am always so glad when I tote my camera around with me to every single one of the kids occasions. You truly can't capture the memory without the photo.
As Ralna stated on the Just Scrap It blog, I do a lot of pages of my children in their day to day tasks. My son Lucas got to play on a "Big Kid" baseball field last week. He was overwhelmed at the size, the soft sand and the dugout. He was really impressed when he heard the announcer say his name over the loud speaker when he went up to bat. Another memorable moment!
I grew up in a family with four children. It is rare that we ever all get together anymore. This past April we all gathered at my parents home just before my dad went into the special care home. My brother Ken suggested a "kid's picture" . . . duh . . . Well, we got it and after a little bit of digging, I managed to find a few photos of us in the sixties as we always were . . . lined up for a picture. I thought it would be fun to put them all together on a page. Amanda, thanks for the ideas for the layout.
I just did this page. I was cleaning up my room and found all of this AC DC stuff. I realized that I have so much AC DC stuff because I have listened to them since highschool. I wish I was into scrapbooking and photography when I went to the last AC DC concert a few years ago. I managed to find an old highschool picture of me and had to include it. I used an overlay (cut up) and chopped up a couple of photos to make the left side piece. It's just another part of who I am.
My daughter Sky wanted this page posted to my blog . . . because it has the love of her life with her. This page was done as a staff challenge at JSI. During February, we had to do a page on love; well, if one person loves unconditionally . . . it is Sky and her horse BREEZE. She writes: "I love Breeze" or "Sky loves Breeze" on everything in our house, so it seemed fitting that I do a page on her and her best friend!
The Just Scrap It staff has been very fortunate to be able to call Wilna Furstenberg their friend. She is the best scrapbooker I know. I love to look at her pages and listen to the comments she has for all scrapbookers. This was at the JSI Spring Fling where she taught a class. Everyone was enlightened by her comments and talent. Besides being an amazing scrapbooker, she is one of the sweetest, down-to-earth individuals I know. The one thing I have to thank her for is her urging to journal more; afterall, what is a scrapbook page without a story? Thank you for encouraging all of us to further our scrapbooking creativity and pour our thoughts and feelings onto our pages.
Leave it to me to find something to photograph in a junkyard. After all of the snow we had this winter, the junkyard was so muddy. By the time I was ready to leave, my shoes made a squishing sound and were so muddy. But, I loved it and really enjoyed my first afternoon out in the fresh spring air.
When I first saw the Mommy-isms rub-ons by Daisy-Dees, I knew I had to do a page. So many of them have flown out of my mouth over the past sixteen years. Of course, I had to add some acrylic stamps to the page to finish it off. 
I did this page awhile ago and had it on my computer. I love it so I thought I would put it on my blog. My father always did this with my big sister Donna (her and only her). It is another one of those special things that had to be scrapbooked to be remembered.
This was an extremely hard page for me to do. As a child, my father was the strongest person I knew. He was the man that could do anything. He worked in construction; therefore, I saw him make things, pick up heavy things, supervise many men on a construction site as their boss. For the past 22 years, he has battled Parkinson's Disease. His physical and mental health has deteriorated drastically. Just before Easter of this year, he became a permanent resident of Lutheran Special Care Home. I felt I had to scrapbook this event and put it into my family album. I guess seeing it on paper put a realization to the fact that my parents are getting older and will be looking to their children for care now.
Sheryl Schmidt came over to cut the kids hair one night. Everyone was easy until Jade . . . Her hair is beautiful and she knows exactly how she wants it to look. She just didn't know how to explain it to poor Sheryl. Amazingly, Sheryl figured it out and cut it exactly how Jade wanted it. Thank you Sheryl.
I LOVE CARS!! So . . . I do the majority of the car pages at JSI. This year at the Car Show, I decided to take pictures of my favorite parts of cars I like. This is the page I came up with. Guys like the photos and the title . . . wonder why?
