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| Scrapbooks, American-style For those of you who are thinking (like me at first), "What's so cool about sticking tatty old newspaper cuttings into a nasty sugar-paper book?" - "scrapbooking" no longer means just that. It's about preservation of photos, archiving of memories, creativity with archive-quality materials to create something vibrant, that brings the photos and memories to life. It's also a horder's dream, with ream upon ream of exciting patterned papers, vibrant hues of pens, stickers and stamps galore, and so much more. America has dreamy stores dedicated to such things, and they are something that most of the rest of us can only dream of. (Or you could visit ArtBase, near London.) I happily blame a discreet selection of American friends who ganged up on me, and ruthlessly taunted me with tales of their scrapbooks. I eventually succumbed, and started initially by joining Creative Memories as a consultant. I've let that slip, for the moment, but I fully intend to make use of that in the not too distant future. Kira (Mel Lowery) has a wonderful website with a few select but very well chosen links, and I was drawn further in. I discovered dMarie (and they discovered my credit card number shortly after), and I was very privileged to be able to visit some wonderful people in Michigan who led me on a whirlwind week-long tour of the best scrapping places in town. I'm loaded up, ready to go ... I just need to train myself to take more photographs! (Illustrations and some of my pages coming soon...) |