Scrapbooking ... Art? Storytelling? Preservation?

For some reason today I have been thinking about why I scrapbook. What is the purpose for me?


I think back in the day when Scrapbooking hit the popular "thing to do" section of the crafting world it was all about preserving your precious photographs for generations to come. That was back in the good ol' days when we had cameras with negatives and there was no such thing as printing photos at home.

Now days, in the world of digital photography,  it seems to have become much more a form of art. Where pages have become amazingly detailed with an amazing amount of product and embellishments attached. With very little if any focus on the photograph or story behind it.

I came to the conclusion that scrapbooking has become for me, all about storytelling. It has never been about preserving my photos for my Great great great great Grandchildren.  It is something that me and my children can look back on and remember the good times we had as a family. Journaling on my pages is very important for me. It says the things the photos don't say. How we were feeling, what the weather was like, any background story. I have always been a diary/journal writer for as long as I can remember, so for me that part is very important.  And of course it is a form of art. Because of course we want the page to look pretty!! (Or cool, depending on gender hehehe) And there is a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment in creating things. Call it therapy, or time out. I use my scrapbooking time as a time to reflect too.

Of course Scrapbooking is a personal thing, so I am going to appoligise in advance if I upset or offend anyone with this post. That is definitely NOT my intention. I am expressing MY opinion on MY thoughts. You are welcome to comment with your thoughts too.

Now for me Scrapbooking focuses on the photos. But have we gone too far into Art with our scrapbooking and are we beginning to lose the focus?  I see scrapbook pages where you have to search for the photo. I see pages where the photo is covered up with so much product you can hardly see it. And I see page after page with no journaling at all.

I am beginning to think, should these people be calling themselves scrapbookers any more? Should they instead be calling themselves artists?

Don't get me wrong the pages I see are stunningly beautiful (most of the time!) but is it really scrapbooking any more, or is it just beautiful artworks? Or has the focus of scrapbooking changed so dramatically that so long as it has a photograph on it you can call it scrapping?

I'm certainly not saying this is a bad thing. But lately, especially since opening my shop, I have been thinking about what is popular in the world of scrapping. Do I need to stock this if it is popular even if I don't like it? Can I sell a product I wouldn't use myself, or can't stand the sight of?  When I do classes can I make things that are the 'in' thing to do but isn't my style? So many things to consider and wonder about.

So what are your thoughts? What is the reason YOU scrapbook? What does it mean to YOU?
I would love to hear what you think.

Better Scrapbooking March Scrap Pack

When this months scrap pack arrived I was a little worried. It was a very heritagey pack and I have never really done any heritage scrapping before. 

The paper was gorgeous! It was a range called Generations by Simple Stories.

I went to a BBQ at my Nana & Grandad's house and my Nana has photographs EVERYWHERE! Every surface you look at is covered in photos so I borrowed a few from her and scanned them to do my first two layouts.

This is my Dad's family. All 9 of them! My Dad is the last one in the back row.

This is my Nana (Dad's Mum). She said she would have been about 15 or 16 in this photo. She is 84 now. My Nana is awesome!

And just so I don't feel left out ... this is ME! I must have been about 3 in this photo. It was on my Great Uncles farm which we used to visit a lot as kids.

I am lucky enough to have 3 out of my 4 Grandparents still around. On my Mums side we have 4 Generations of girls. It is such a special thing to have in a family. Abbey is very lucky to have 3 generations of advice, wisdom, strength and love to depend upon. My Grandma is 86 years old and I try not to take for granted that she won't always be around. I am so happy that my children can have a relationship with their great-grandparents! 

So even though I was a bit worried to begin with I am really pleased with the end results of this Scrap Pack!  Head on over to the March Better Scrapbooking newsletter to find out how I made these and check out what the other design team member Jennie did too! Also Megan has added some great tips and techniques in too!

Holiday In Christchurch

Man where oh where do I begin?!?!

Well a long long time ago My friend Nicola convinced me that I needed to go down to her home town of Christchurch to attend the Scrappin' Patch Retreat in September. I though hmm well ok why not. So I booked my spot paid my deposit and didn't think too much about it.

After all that, Christchurch was devastated by some pretty horrific earthquakes, destroying many iconic buildings, losing many lives and turning the lives of many upside down. {read about it HERE} So when September suddenly appeared I was quite excited (as well as a little nervous) about heading down to Christchurch, and the South Island, for the first time.

So on Wednesday, 6 nights after I moved into my new house, I was heading to Christchurch on an airplane!


I have never flown on my own before so that was a new experience for me. But once I stepped out of the airport to see my lovely friend Nicola waiting for me I was completely at ease and totally happy to be there.

I spent 2 nights with Nicola and her family. I got to have a little look around Christchurch and witness some of the earthquake damage. It was common sight to see bricks piled up against broken walls, curbs with humps and cracks everywhere from the roads to the houses. Thankfully (for me!) there was no after shocks while I was there but the people of Christchurch have to continue to live with these constantly. I really feel for them.



Something else I got to do while in Christchurch was to visit the Scrap It Simple store that my friend Hilary owns. If you remember I helped Hilary out with her stall at SENZ in June. It was really nice to be able to see the 'real' shop and catch up with Hilary as well.



Friday afternoon Hilary picked Nic and I up and we headed to Glentui for Scrap Camp!! It was a lovely drive out there and I was very excited to see Snow on the Southern Alps!



We were the last to arrive and after taking our bags up to our room, unpacking our totes and getting settled in we were straight into our first class with our International Tutor, Steph Devlin.



Our first class was an Off the Page project on a canvas.



I really enjoyed making the little canvas and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was amazing how we all did the same thing but every ones looked different. It was a great night.

I shared a table with Nicola and Hilary and we were so lucky to be sat with the two most fun and lovely ladies ever! Jo and Anne. They were a blast and we have decided next retreat we are all going to bunk in together! So cool to make new friends!!



Our table was right next to the fire place and the AMAZING view out the HUGE windows.



Glentui was an amazing venue. The food was plentiful and delicious. The grounds were spectacular. It is certainly a place I would recommend to anyone!

After the class we stayed up and did some scrapping of our own and then toddled off to bed. Nothing Quite like scrapping in your PJs!!!



Saturday was an early morning and a great day filled with another class with Steph, lots of kits and free scrapping, laughs, food photo taking and snacks. Another late night (1.30) and then talking until who knows when!



Sunday came with another early start a bit of scrapping, and packing up. We had planned to have lunch and head home. While we were packing up we heard news there was a 4.5 Aftershock in Christchurch. The only quake while I was there and we didn't even feel it out at camp!!

Hilary drove us back to Nicola's place after lots of farewells and then off to the airport to head home.


It was sad to say goodbye but also really great to be heading home to my kiddies who I missed a lot!! And by their reactions to seeing me I think they missed me too!!

Such an AWESOME weekend with some AWESOME ladies. I can't wait to do it all again!!

Better Scrapbooking July Scrap Pack

Well the July newsletter is out at Better Scrapbooking and that means I can show off what I made with this months Scrap Pack.



I stole this pic of what was in the scrap pack from fellow design team member Karen, you can check out what she did with it HERE The papers were all from the Fancy Pants Hot Chocolate range.

CRAFT TO DO BOOK



I have sooo many crafting ideas that I want to do so I decided to make a book to keep all my ideas in. I have put 6 TABS saying:

*NEED TO - for all my unfinished projects
*WANT TO - all the projects I REALLY want to do
*DESIGN TEAM - all my projects for the Better Scrapbooking design team
*SKETCHES - scrapbooking sketches I want to do
*CONTESTS - any online competitions or challenges
*MARKET - stuff I am going to make for the craft market

with the all the projects I have put in the book I have also included all the materials I need to make it all. I am hoping that I will be able to be a little more organised with my crafts by using this book!!

MAGNETIC COASTER


I wanted to do something a little different with my coaster rather than just make a coaster so I decided to turn it into an inspirational magnet! You never have too many magnets aye!!

CARDS



Now cards have never been my strong point, I really don't like making them. But I think been on the DT is making me stretch out of my comfort zone and make more cards than I have before! These ones I quite like!

LO


This paper range was PERFECT for the photos I took on our recent Holiday to Taupo and Rotorua. The kids were all rugged up and in their warm jackets which we rarely wear up here in the 'Winterless North'. I love this photo of Riley in his jacket!

If you want to know how I made these head on over to Better Scrapbooking and check out the July Newsletter, also check out what the other Design Team members have done with their packs.

Also head on over to the Better Scrapbooking Blog to see the new July Challenges! Upload your entries in the Better Scrapbooking Gallery and be in to win a monthly prize!

Happy Scrapping everyone!

SENZ 2011

Quite some time ago an online friend of mine Hilary and I were talking about the fact that SENZ was in Auckland this year. SENZ is the Scrapbooking, Cardmaking and Papercrafts Expo of New Zealand. We got talking about this and that snd she asked if I could help her out with her stall at SENZ. Of course I jumped at the chance to be involved and so two weekends ago now I went to SENZ as a Scrap It Simple gal!

You can check out Hilary's Blog HERE and her Online store HERE and SENZ HERE

So on the Thursday morning I dropped my kids off at Mums when it was still dark and drove to Auckland to meet Hilary. I arrived at the Telstraclear Pacific Event Centre in Manukau at about 10.30. Hilary and I unloaded all her product and set up her Scrap it Simple Store. We left the centre for lunch and finished up around 7.30pm! Busy day! It was great to see what everyone else was setting up too and meeting lots of people as well.


Hilary's friend made us these awesome aprons to wear over the weekend and come Friday morning we were up and ready to roll!!


At 9am the VIP ladies started coming in. I got the hang of the calculator and how to take percents off prices and we had a pretty steady run on day one. I got to meet the Lovely Louise from Paper, Scissors, Chocolate, who was selling her AMAZING jewelry from her Altered Ambitions etsy store and Debbie popped in to give me an AWESOME Orange early Birthday pressie and some yummy yummy cupcakes. It was nice to finally get to meet Debbie and Louise in person! I also bumped into Jenny, Robyn and Chris, who were some of my regular ladies at the classes I tutored at Absolutely Crafty in Pukekohe. It was really great to see them again.

After dinner out with Hilary I went to bed and totally crashed for the night!!

Saturday morning I went and picked up Jenny from the airport. She had flown in from Wellington and was going to be staying with me at my Aunts place. Then we collected Hilary and went to the centre. (see Jenny's recollections of SENZ HERE)

Saturday was VERY busy!! Hilary and I got hardly any time at all to rest our feet! A 10 min shared sandwich with Jenny and back to work!! Seeing more friends was a bonus, Lisa, Janine and Ruth from Whangarei, my good friend Taryn and her sister and another one of my class ladies Ngaire. After cleaning up for the day we went out for dinner at an Irish Pub which served Indian food! It was lovely and we met up with a few of the ladies from NZ Scrapbook there. After dinner we headed back to the centre for the SENZ Crop.

Jenny, Hilary and I were the last to arrive at the crop and we sat at a table with two lovely ladies, Janelle and Tina. They were so lovely and incredibly funny! We laughed ALL night!


We all got a little dress form to decorate as one of the challenges for the crop. I won a little prize for mine!! And I even managed to get one LO done, which was more than I had anticipated!!



Sunday was another busy day in the Scrap It Simple stand as Hilary made some awesome last day of the show specials!! We had to then have the quickest pack up ever (it took us 55mins!!) to get Jenny and Hilary to the airport to fly back home.


It was such an awesome, fun, busy weekend! Thank you Hilary for letting me be a part of your team for the weekend! It was fabulous and an awesome experience for me. I certainly hope to be at the next SENZ too!!

(also thanks to Hilary who took all the photos from SENZ above)

Better Scrapbooking Bonanza Post

Lots of Better Scrapbooking stuff to write about today!

Firstly the new June Newsletter is out check it out HERE. I did a few Off The Page projects for this months Scrap Pack. I loved the Bo Bunny Petal Pushers papers so much that I forgot to take a photo of the papers and stuff before I dug into it so sorry!!

But here is what I made ...

I made these using 6 of the large matchboxes. Abbey loves it and it looks super cute in the bathroom and keeps her hair stuff nice and tidy!

I know I was on Off the Page but a scrapbook page was screaming at me from these papers!! Abbey outside blowing 'dandy clocks' were perfect photos to go with the papers!

I have had this sitting around for a very long time. I picked it up at the hospice shop for 50c.

This is what it looks like now ....


This was the very first 'binkie' Abbey had when she was in SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit) and to go with the little shadow box I made this to match ....



I am so pleased with how these turned out. And Abbey was too!!

Now onto the Cards ....



I made this card for my Mum for Mothers day. I put a magnet on the back so she could put it on the fridge. I printed the card template from HERE


'Hello' Card


Baby Shower Card

To See how I made all these go check out the June Newsletter at Better Scrapbooking HERE

Since the newsletter is out also means that there are new June Challenges!

Layout Challenge - Sketch
This is fairly easy - simply use the below layout (designed by Megan), as your guide and copy it. You are welcome to add some journalling and a title.



Photo Challenge - Change
With the change of seasons Megan thought a photo challenge of 'change' could be fun. It might be the change in the trees, or maybe your change of hairstyle/colour or even a change in the house where you have tidied/re-organised. Share your 'change' with us!

Project Challenge - The Kids Room
Create a fun off the page project for your child's bedroom. It could be a word banner, name plaque or hair bobs box. See what fun item you can come up with for your child's room and then share your finished project with us.

Card Challenge - Folded Embellishment
Create a card using an embellishment, some form of paper folding such as teabag folding or our fold-it flower template.

There is a prize for each challenge so to be in to win upload your photos to the Better Scrapbooking Gallery HERE before the end of June!

And speaking of prizes here are the winners for the May Challenges ....

Layout Challenge - Layering Embellishments

Congratulations to Cherie!



Photo Challenge - Reflections

Congratulations to Judez!



Project Challenge - Tribute to Mum

Congratulations to Jenny!!



Card Challenge - Waterfall Card

Congratulations to Jenny again!! Way to go Jenny!



Happy Scrapping everyone!!