To start, I was born a paper lover. I don't remember a beginning to this, it's just always been there.
And I was always an avid sticker collector. I had sticker collection books galore and would pick them up anywhere. I even got busted stealing a pack from the grocery store one time and had to take them back with tears streaming down my face…straight to the manager. Boy, that was humiliating. But, never stole anything I ever again…lesson learned.
So, anyway, back to scrapbooking.
As I got older, the love of stickers never subsided but instead of keeping them in one book, I would stick them on everything. Notebooks, binders, windows, plastic storage bins, any container I had with a flat surface, my car, etc., etc., etc. Any project I did for school had stickers somewhere on it to decorate, any card I gave to anyone was covered in stickers…. You get the point: I was a little obsessed.
Then came along a creative movement called scrapbooking, where paper and sticker hoarding folks like myself now had an excuse to hoard all of these items we love so much, AND it still serve a purpose. Thank goodness it came along when it did and I could channel this sticker madness into something that was actually worth my while and creative. I remember a couple big companies kind of running the show, but I did my own thing with random product items I wanted to use in my layouts…if you could even call them that at this point. Where the professionals were using one or two pictures with a lot of embellishments, I was using a lot of pictures with a few, theme-appropriate embellishments. I even tried going to a couple of 'Crop Nights' using the major label products, and I only came out with a layout I made for my dad for Father's Day. I knew this wasn't the right style for me, but I was just following procedure of the class.
Luckily in college, I had a couple of good friends that also shared a love and paper crafting. This shared love eventually transpired into get-togethers centered around 'The Golden Girls,' Chik-Fil-a, our pjs usually, and scrapbooking. We were hooked. I started documenting with my Freshman year, then kept going through the college years…aaaaaand eventually ending up a semester or two behind. I would get so stressed out about it that I became too overwhelmed to work on it, so then I wouldn't, and then got even more behind, and so the cycle began. Such a catch-22. But when I did pull all of my materials to work on it I would really get into it and go for hours, and sometimes days where I would marathon dozens of pages (while putting off schoolwork). Needless to say, those pages were not the most creative, but I wanted that documentation of this time of my life, so I just went with it and got them done anyway I could.
Throughout the years, I started playing around with adding type to my pages, or paint, or trying to be cohesive with occasions or seasons, and adding more embellishments to my pages while still using a few pictures per page. I always hung on to memorabilia from places I visited, so those additions were never lacking. I would visit the local scrapbooking store and pick up goodies from companies like Me & My Big Ideas (I LOVED their stick people), Mrs. Grossman, etc. I ended up growing quite a collection of stickers and papers, which would show up in my layouts. Any kind of letter sticker was becoming a fast favorite, and I don't even think I need to get into the paper craze that was happening.
I took a HUGE break from scrapbooking during my mid to late twenties where I never did any layouts, but got into making cards with stamps…which meant a whole new range of materials to use, ahem..hoard. This lasted several years on and off, giving the scrapbooking world plenty of time to grow new companies, new products, new ideas. I was flabbergasted at how much it had grown when I finally decided to jump back in. And I didn't just jump - I did a triple-somersault jackknife dive. It was insane. Suddenly my stash grew three-fold, and I was getting rid of the materials I had bought in college to make room for all of the new stuff that was more suited for my current style. I was looking on the internet for ideas, downloading page layout guides, and I even took an online sketch class from Studio Calico, resulting in the following layouts.
It was like I had been reborn almost…I could still document my life, but it felt much more mature now that I was older. It was more than just stickers and pretty paper…it was art. And so many cool people were doing it…it wasn't just a middle-aged woman's activity while her kids were at school and soccer practice like the stereotype portrayed. I didn't need to be embarrassed to say that I was a scrapbooker because I didn't fit that (downright silly) mold. I loved this reunion I was having with pictures and papers and stickers…it felt so exciting and inspiring knowing that I was back in the game…even my working on it was sporadic. But again, when I did, I would really get into it.
to be continued….
