Books on a Shelf

Last year we were under a tornado warning. According to the local television station it was coming right for us.  So in the 5 minutes I had to gather my most cherished possessions, I pocketed my grandfather's pocket watch, grabbed two quilts - one my grandmother made and one Lenny's mother made - and piled on as many scrapbooks as I could carry and headed to the basement.

Fortunately, the tornado never came.  Afterward, I wandered around my house wondering if there were any other things I'd have rather preserved.  Of course, if I'd had more time, there are more family heirlooms, a few accessories I'm particularly fond of, and some photos.  Though most of the photos have been scanned and backed up to a disk and stored in the safety deposit box - one of the many valuable things to come out of throwing my parents a 50th Anniversary party was scanning all those photos.  And I have photos of many of my scrapbook pages backed up too.

What was surprising was how quickly I went from the Tier 1 - stuff I would spend that 5 minutes or less gathering and the Tier 2 - just a few more minutes  to the Tier 3+ things I like, would save if I had a few hours, but just really aren't that irreplaceable.

My scrapbooks are more than just books on a shelf.  Every scrapbooker knows that but I bet lots of other people don't.  I didn't give a thought to gathering clothes even though I was running around that night in my bathrobe.  You can buy clothes.  You can buy new furniture.  You can't buy a photo of the hot air balloon ride that landed in the lake and the accompanying story.  These memories are precious.  A tornado isn't going to wipe out my memories.  Yet, the little nudge these books give our memories is truly priceless.

So this week when Shimelle asked us to Explore what was most perfect - things we wouldn't change, I thought first of people and then these books.

Once upon a time I gave a minutes thought to redoing some of my older scrapbooks - the ones made before I knew there was this wonderful hobby with all the accouterments to make fancy pages rather than just a photo and some journaling. But I quickly discarded the idea.  Not only would I never have time, the process I used to make those early (1990's) scrapbooks was what I had at the time.  I was creative with my computer and the 'embellishments' I could find.  I did themes to the books even when all I had to print on was an old dot matrix printer.  But even that is a memory - my first home computer and printer.

So the books are perfect just like they are.  I might take an old photo and scrap it to relive a memory sometime but I won't replace the original page.

Now for this page...

Here are my 9 circle embellishments.  I cut the background paper in strips in one corner, distressed the edges, and wove in some scraps of grid paper to create a subtle grid.

Adding the little word stickers in place of the typed words took a little trial and error but it was fun and spread around some of the color.

Thanks for visiting today!  If you are taking the class, I look forward to seeing your creations, too.

Ingredients:  DSP:  For the Record by Bella Blvd for background, various Stampin' Up! and American Crafts Campy Trail scraps for embellishments
Thickers:  Blackberry Puffy by American Crafts
Font:  Blackjack for title
Stickers:  Jillibean Soup; On Holiday from the Girl's Paperie