Too much history

It was History Day at my son's school last week, and I really shouldn't have read Things your History Teacher didn't tell you this year (although it's a great read) as I was especially cynical about the Kindergarten's depiction of the first Thanksgiving, and the third graders singing Yankee Doodle.  My son's class also sang The Grand Old Flag and the Nifty 50 States song.  Sense a theme here?  I'm sure knowing the 50 states in alphabetical order will win him a pub quiz one day but trust me, there will be some serious Kiwi indoctrination going on once we're back in NZ. 
For my last hurrah, it had to be a page celebrating this wondrous event: lots of colour and a slightly haphazard layout.

Last hurrah?  Today I gave into my husband's gentle prompting, and packed up the scrapbooking supplies.  Two big boxes and a small one left over, so I was pretty pleased with that.  Pity the poor men who have to lift them though.  I didn't throw too much out as I went; I'd done a big clean up a few months ago before visitors and donated heaps of the crafty stuff to school. 
I have committed to a scrap relay sometime this month, so have my crop bag packed.  That was the hardest thing: trying to predict what I'd need for a LO I haven't seen yet, but if I started to plan it properly, today wouldn't have happened at all and there would have been more not-so-gentle prompting tomorrow.

Then and Now

Ahh bubbles.  They don't pop like balloons, and they don't leave you soaking like water guns.  A perfect leisurely way to spend an afternoon.
This was a Then and Now challenge: choose a page you like, and do it again to show how your style has changed.  I don't have copies of pre-digital photos (who does?) so I took some more of the same thing.

The captions read: Express Yourself, Be a Dreamer, Imagine.  Husband snorted at the time but he should see the crap I put on now (like the previous post!)  I remember how hard it was to tear perfect circles out of vellum. 

And yesterday.  Scraplifted from Anna White-Sharman: sketch, colours and all.

Back from stress leave

Changes here: I resigned from the design team as I was feeling too stressed creating perfect layouts every time instead of my usual hit and misses.  I still haven't (and never will) get the hang of misting and sewing, but I'll blunder along here and be pitifully grateful for any complimentary scraps that get thrown my way.
Just in time too, as we start packing this weekend to move countries, and even though I'm entitled to take 100kg on the plane with me, I'm not too sure how I can do it with two kids, clothes for a month, a car seat and a mountain buggy as well.  Husband is coming a month later - hmm, how did he manage that?  That's right, I wasn't going to stay on this rock a minute longer than I had to.

Last night I was challenged to use a 'girly' theme for a boy page, and luckily I'd just bought some beautiful Panama Lounge paper from Grant Studios (snaps to Warehouse Stationery).  I tried to tone it down with blue embellishments and it sort of worked. 

I think there's a market for reality titles though - 'Best friends for 30 seconds before going off in different directions for an hour' might be more accurate.

Letting the title tell the story

I was inspired by a title on a layout at Scrapbook Challenges ages ago, One day there was a lion at the beach (thanks Jasmine Lombaard) and I loved the way the whole page was explained right there and then (and the very cute pictures of a boy pretending to be a lion chasing waves, as kids do).  So here is The day we got Puckerman Bear. 

I'd seen the bear in a bin at Cost U Less (commonly known as Cost U More here on island - the place I definitely do not want to be in an earthquake), and there is something special about having a toy bigger than the baby it's for.  The name comes from Glee, which I know is very inappropriate for an 8 year old but he loves the music and I'm hoping the sexual references go way, way over his head.  We thought about Finn, but that wasn't beary enough, and Artie was too beary, so Puckerman got the nod.  Of course the 8 year old plays with Puckerman far more than the 1 year old, although I did catch the baby determinedly dragging P-Bear by its ear back into his room from his brother's yesterday.
The layout is for Sketch 266 at Scrapbook Challenges, and it also fitted the red, yellow and green colour challenge.

The photo that wouldn't

This photo has been moving up and down in my To Be Scrapbooked pile for years.  Many times it's even got as far as the table, but it's never made it onto the page until now.  For many reasons: it's been difficult to match it with any background card, probably because of all those bright moire taffeta dresses (mine was raw silk - classy)!  The photo has also faded so much, and I don't know what the photographer was doing using bronze velour curtains for a backdrop.  Most of all, I just don't like the photo.  It was an awful night, I looked like crap, was horrible to my date, and generally did not have a good time!
But I did it!  I used Jowilna's sketch at Scrapbook Challenges, a background of core-dinations and I controlled my doodling.  The photo did nearly get completely ruined when I was a bit ambitious with my misting, but luckily I was able to unattach it from the original card - says a lot for my adhesive skills!  I've also learnt to sand the cardstock (with a nail file) outside, as I'm going to have to actually clean my table before I do another layout.

The page is more purple than the photo shows.  The journaling reads: Bad Hair, Bad Dress, Good Mates, it must be the 80s.

Back in the groove

I'm back!  We had a wonderful holiday, took over 250 photos which I've whittled down to 150, not counting the many, many shots of fish #1 son took at the Seattle Aquarium, and I have the mini-album all sorted in my head.  I'm sure it will come out of there and on to paper sometime soon.
I did make the mistake of leaving two half done layouts on the desk, and they bugged me for the first week until I put them away (hid them under pillows on the spare bed).  I will come back to them one day.  To get back in the groove, I did a typical Sharyn page for the Y page of the ABCs of Me (thank goodness that's nearly over).  Lots of co-ordinating patterned paper and some misting.  The journalling reads : The last time I enjoyed doing housework.

A philosophical journey or Why I could never quilt

Thank you to Isabelle who left a comment on my last post, (not that I blame anyone as I keep trying to leave comments all over cyberspace and I can't for some reason) but she was curious about scrapbooking, which made me curious.  Also thanks to modern technology, I could see she got here from my sister's quilting blog.  Now quilting, there's a funny thing to do.  I can appreciate the effort that goes into it, but all that randomness really doesn't do it for me.  That's why my sister only makes me clean, geometric, co-ordinated quilts (thank you!).
Even though I spend a lot of time scrapping, and I'm quite proud of my efforts, I'm still a bit embarrassed about it.  This blog was just about called sharynscrap, pun intended!  I guess because it's not productive in a Put this on the bed kind of way, or make all my own birthday cards and save heaps of money.  And my initial perspective was that scrapping is overemotional. I really don't feel the urge to write down all my innermost feelings for everyone to see (maybe I should, but that's another post!)  Scrapbooking does fit my attention span, limited artistic capabilities and non-perfectionist core; 3 good reasons why I could never be a quilter.
And I like playing with paper and being colour-coordinated!