Old School Scrapbooking

It was approximately 11 years ago when I began to scrapbook. I became interested when a little store opened in town. I walked in and was hooked. All the beautiful paper, albums, and stamps. However, it was more about the memories I wanted to record than the pretty things. I do not have a baby book, or any art from school, only a few school pictures, and about 5 years worth of report cards.  How I wish I had more of those things to look at today.  Little bits and pieces of the girl I used to be. That is my driving force behind why I scrapbook. Each of the kids has a detailed baby book, hundreds of pictures, and many scrapbooks. I record everything I can.  I save a lot of their papers from school, artwork, report cards, etc. I date everything too.  I want them to have those memories forever.  

You are probably wondering how I have room for all this "stuff"?  I don't.  I pick and choose what I want to keep, what I think is important. Once it goes in a book, it's all contained in one place, and all it takes is a little bit of paper, adhesive, and a pen to record the story.  (I also take photos of some of the artwork once I feel it's time to throw it out)  You can be very creative or not at all. It doesn't matter how it looks, what matters is that the story is there for whomever you are making the book for.  That's what's most important to me, the story.  

As I was growing up not only did my mom not save much, I didn't either.  It wasn't until I was in my senior year of high school when I began to have this need to start saving some of these "things".  Things I thought were important to keep, such as the pictures of the first preschool class I ever worked with (which was in my high school), all the year book pictures friends had given me, prom invites, and everything from graduation.  I saved quite a few things from college too.  Then I met The Husband and I began to save EVERYTHING, including every card he wrote me to the petals of flowers I let dry (I still have them in a mason jar today). Tickets to shows we saw, from movies to Broadway plays.  Bits and pieces from all the trips we took from Disney to Italy and all the places in-between.  

All these memories have been in a box for many, many years.  After I started scrapbooking for the kids I thought it might be a good idea to get all that "stuff" out of the box and into some sort of book.  I liked the idea of an old school scrapbook.  The kind where you glue what you want to save in a book. No fancy papers, no strategic placement of pictures and objects.  A plain book similar to something older generations might have used.  I didn't want to put a lot of money or creativity into this book so I did some searching and fond this 

in the Exposures catalog.  It's a large book, 13 x 17.  It's perfect for all my memorabilia.  (I bought this book about 8 years ago, ahem.)  Anyway, I finally got around to placing those items in there a few weeks ago and I am very happy with the results.

Below are some of the pages inside.  I used scrapbook safe adhesives and plan to do some writing (the story) and dating on the pages.

Here are the hospital pictures of J and A.  I placed their pictures on an envelope.  Inside are the calendars I used during my pregnancy for each. I also included the pregnancy tests and some of little things I received at their births and in the hospital.  (Is it weird to save your pregnancy tests?) I had to save C's because I took it on Valentines Day 2006 and put it in The Husband's card!!  Surprise!

Here are some of the tickets and the covers of the playbills from some of the shows we've seen (there are several pages worth)

Do you remember the Absolut Vodka advertisements?  Do they still make them?  I had to save these of course.

The left side is some of the pictures I have from my high school preschool class and more playbills on the right.

Here are some of the color swatches of the paint we've used in the house, there are more, but I haven't come across them in the box as of yet.  On the right side is a smaller envelope with the prayer cards from all the wakes of family and friends that I've been to. 

I also have pages of all the preschool/daycare classes I've worked with, newspaper clippings of friends engagement announcements, birth announcements, as well as my own. I have the time magazines from 9/11, obituary's (in the envelope on the left side of the prayer cards), and cards and handwritten letters from the special people in my life.  

I am very happy with the results.  

What do you think?

Do you save all the little bits and pieces?