Productivity

Little Darlings Page Element

 I've decided the best approach to each page design is to treat each element going onto a page as a mini-mini page layout.  For example: one page cut out is backed with a coordinating paper, both the bottom paper and the cut out inked, lace applied to the back of the cutout image, and apply an even smaller element inked and Stickled.  A simple 2.5x3.5 image comes out as a 5.5x4.25 micro page consisting of six layers.  This doesn't count the four to seven layers the embellishment will be mounted upon. However, it turned out  looking rather professional, or at least pretty good.
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There was a special father-daughter soccer game this evening.  We brought along the camera to capture a few unique elements since this year's soccer album needed a few more photos  Everything went well until the very last moments of game play.  The star of the show was running full out chasing the ball before it went out of play.  Very close to this area was a mom also taking pictures of the game.  Predictably, it turned into a disaster.  Before anyone could take corrective action, Miss J ran into the lady on the ground.  Almost.  The lady had a small dog, leased, sitting directly in front of her, and it being fully conscious of the mayhem about to take place jumped up and attacked.  The Miss ended up with multiple and deep bite marks on her thigh and lower leg.  These quickly turned into a very ugly blue mixed with red blood.  I've never seen her cry over an injury before, but this incident caused large wet tears to well. 

Fortunately for all, the dog is fully vaccinated and current with all other required shots as well registered with the, but will still be sequestered in the pound for ten days due to asinine city policy .  What is wrong with that picture?  I was spitting mad that despite following all the rules the family has to be separated from the family pet, and to add insult to injury (so to speak), must pay impounding fees.  The lady was generous enough to allow a picture of the dog and its victim.  That will be a great page to scrap... when animals attack.

Tomorrow we run down to the doctor's office for a tetanus shot.  At any rate, the team won the game at 2-0.

Scrap-lifted

This layout is one I virtually lifted from the page of another artist, NMscrapper.  The paper was on hand (or maybe I ordered the paper after seeing the original layout) and a store accidentally sent me the chipboard pieces - really! - and I immediately knew which photo belonged on my version.

Adaptation of original layout featuring my mother, 1953

Scraplifted from NMscrappy, posted on Scrapbook.com

I'll readily admit the original looks far better than mine.  (Better photography, to begin with!)  But the similarities are striking.

I was particularly proud of the pleated flowers I made from scratch... my first.  I recently bought a Cricut cartridge, Flower Shoppe, that handily allows me to create the yellow roses found on NMScrappy's page.  I'm still working with the cartridge, but this demonstrates the progression of skill acquisition over time.  Today, I would have copied the yellow roses and applied them to the LO.

I created this layout when cutting very pretty paper still seemed rather sinful.  I learned after this paper could and should be cut, which cracked the barrier that kept me from opening the virgin G45 stacks.  Although I loved the paper line, Printery, I didn't realize it came from Prima Marketing.  Had I, I probably never would have used it.  It's just good that it did.... plus, I still have more of the paper to hoarde.

Not all Goes as Planned

Feeling much better now, thank you.  There's still no clue as to what happened.

Much to my amazement, there are areas in life where paper, though decorative, doesn't enhance.  The coloured pencil container - previously coffee container - came out splendidly.  So, using great leaps of imagination and motivation, decided to decorate a few other recycled coffee tins.

{Before going forward with the story, it's necessary to note my husband is a closet garage hoarder.  Only the garage.  He'll come back and say it's my fault... blah, blah, blah.  It most certainly is not.  It's that I finally gave up trying to organize the area, only to find it totally junked up weeks later; wasted effort.}

Finding a particular item inside the garage is a daunting task.  Not quite impossible, but we've lost 16x8x7 tents in there.  I'll give credit and say he has a loose system of grouping like items in a particular part of the garage.  He loves my homemade fire starters for BBQ and camping.  He said he'd run out recently, and could I make some more?

This is where the story gets crazy.  Why, we'll never know, but I decided to melt the paraffin so it would store neatly in three cans (first duh).  Task finally completed, I  though it would be nice to paper the exterior of the can to serve as a visual cue in the virtual wasteland.  It finally hit me!  Getting the paraffin out of the coffee cans would require heat... lots of it.  Not so good for paper.  What a total and complete flop.  Live and learn!  Is that funny, or not?

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For my baby pictures mini-album, I'm currently studying every aspect of what makes a page work, or not.  Since the album cover and pages will be created from cereal boxes, you can only imagine the intense labour required.  From scratch!  I only hope it begins to come together before the end of the year.

I gathered my baby pictures from all sorts of stashed areas yesterday, then decided which pictures to use.  A huge task in and of itself.  Now I have a good idea what size pockets to create.  That's it so far.

The inspiration for all of this comes from a video from YouTube, from a user calling herself, Monkeydreamz1. Everything she does are pieces of art.   Of course, I'll need to make many, many adjustments, beginning with painting the pages pastels instead of the bold black she (appropriately) uses in this video.  I'm still looking forward to the project; but maybe because I haven't done anything but find pictures and collect chipboard, no labour as yet.

Dean's Gift

My great-aunt, Dean, left to my care all the genealogical data she'd complied upon her death.  It may be that she saw my interest in the subject, or, being childless, left it to the one relative she knew loved her unconditionally.

Her nephews confiscated all the considered collection upon her death.  Rumour had it Dean had information linking the family directly to the Cherokee or Choctaw tribes; and not one of them were going to trust anyone else to register one without registering all.  Years later, after all the materials were scoured over, the inheritance began filtering to its intended repository.  Apparently, no treasure was ever gleaned from the scrutiny of very selfish men.

Dean was a prolific writer, if nothing else.  It's still possible that one small informational tidbit might be buried within the boxes of materials; however, everyone missed the greatest treasure of all!  Dean faithfully wrote down all the stories passed on to her from her mother, who had been passed down stories of her mother and grandmother.  That's five generations of history!!  The largest (and I suspect most examined) journal contains over 900 pages of handwritten text.  She also wrote another six or seven journals, which only containing about 100 pages each.  Only!

I've had all the material now for well over 15 years now.  At one point I had transcribed almost 200 pages of the handwritten text, and... well, a computer crashed.  I was able to salvage everything but the first 90 pages.  That incident tampered the energy invested in the project to that date.  I've since gone back and re-typed the first 30 pages; but darn it, there's only so many hours to each day.

I turned 50 the other day.  As much as the 45th birthday bothered me, this one was infinitely worse.  (At this point, I don't suspect any others will be of much concern.  Old is old.)  The beginning of a new decade on this earth has caused me to sit down and re-evaluate the directions of the remaining time allotted.  It's worth the effort to finish this project and somehow manage to publish the finished work.  I'm not wanting to publish for fame or fortune, but for certain prosperity.  If not I, then who?  Schools are no longer teaching cursive writing, and full generations - if ever again - will be unable to decipher the texts without specialized training.  I have at least one hour each day to devote to this project... if I'm very careful.

My maternal grandparents are part of the full telling, but their role ends early into their adulthood.  The smaller journals tells a story of her life.  That leaves most of my grandparent's stories untold, and nothing includes my mother's generation..  

I'm a little ambitious.  What if...?  I tell my life story and include it as part of the generational saga. This would become a story recording over 150 years of family history.  There would be a 1.5 generational gap, but this certainly doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done, to be appreciated by some distant descendant of mine.  How incredible if the generation after me (be they sons or nephew or niece) added their story, and so on.

Before my mother died, I begged her for her life's history.  In an effort of compromise, I told her I'd be willing to accept a sanitized version; all to no avail.  It's here that I have to stop and wonder whether I would be able to do the same thing asked of my mother.  There are many regrets and aspects of my life, that in retrospect, would not be so family friendly; especially the teen and early adult years.  Could I offer an accurate glimpse of this life while leaving most of the stories to the reader's ability to read between the lines?  Or could I simply hold back this portion of the story, to be released upon my death?  I've heard dead people don't embarrass so easily!  :)  And thinking along these lines, perhaps this is the same reason Dean guarded her stories until after death!

I'm mulling these ideas currently.  I've never lived an extraordinary life, nothing tangible changed by my existence on the world (except a few lives perhaps?)  Yet, the historian urges began early in life and through one means or the other, I've documented much of the happenings while here.  It wouldn't be a mean fete to pull it all together in the time remaining.  I'll decide at the end of the week whether to tackle the project.

In the meantime, I'll re-start transcription efforts beginning Monday morning.  The most consuming question here is how - HOW, I ASK! - to format the history to a scrapbook format.