April 25, 2008

The Sharing Bag

Today is my last day of week long SC blog hijack. To end my week I thought I'd pose a few questions to get some discussion going. You know, like sharing time. My preschooler came home with the "sharing bag" today and is all excited about taking something to school on Monday to talk about with his friends. That sort of inspired this little post!

We are all gaga over this hobby and I wondered how YOU got to this place, this deep in so to speak. LOL So, here are a few questions for you to answer...

1. How did you get started in scrapbooking? (If you are feeling really brave, link us up to your first layout!)

2. What about scrapping made you fall in love? ;) When did it become more than just putting photos on pretty paper?

3. What do you hope to "accomplish" with/through your scrapbooking? In other words, why do you do it?

Hope you will jump in and leave a comment with your answers...I look forward to reading them! Have a wonderful weekend...and don't forget about the April Showers challenge. ;) I'll post a winner next week.

18 comments:

Nicole Samuels said...

I'll go first!
1. I've always liked putting together scrapbooks. I used to make up albums of vacations and stuff with my photos and magazine cut out (words, etc). I started the acid free way after my mom got me a K and Co. kit from QVC for Christmas in 2001. That was the beginning of the end! :)
2. I think I really became hooked and scrap obsessed after reading my first CK magazine. I was seriously amazed at the pages in there and would read it cover to cover, absorping every little thing in there. You know, reading all the supply lists and totally studying each layout. The patterned papers really became my downfall...I just love patterned paper!
3. My "goal" in scrapping started out as a way to organize my photos and record our "history"...and it still is. But now I scrap more everyday type page to remember the little things and to tell my kids and family what they mean to me. I hope they will enjoy looking at them as they grow up. Scrapping has also sort of become therapy for me...a great creative outlet to enjoy by myself!

Nicole said...

great post Nicole!!
here goes...
1. i started after i had Allie...i'd always had an obsession with office supplies, paper, glue, etc...so this was an 'adult' way for me to feed those cravings, lol.
2. i became really and truly hooked when i took my first class at my LSS with Ali Edwards. she put into words what i had been trying to figure out, lol...that it's just as important to get those 'real' feelings and thoughts down on paper as it is events, etc. call it a revelation, lol...but it was the beginning of the end.
3. as i said, i feel the same way as you Nic...i'm trying to get my family's story down for them to look back on. i often find my daughter sitting on the floor paging through books i've made, and it just melts my heart. add to that the valuable ties i now have to so many women that i can call my friends, and i'd be crazy to stop!!

waleska said...

ohhh this is fun! great questions.
ok I'll play...

1. my hubby did it! long story short- he was trying to get me to be friends with one of his co-worker's wife so he brought it up... HA! he had no idea what he was getting into :]
(on a side note- I always liked keeping notebooks full of ad inspirations and stuff and I remember owning a camera as a kid- so I guess it was in me :])

2. when I discovered all the really fun products and was able to complete a page all on my own (I had a really hard time at first!)

3. I just want to have fun. play with paper and stamps. maybe tell my side of the story and remember the fun stuff my kids say and do... :)

april said...

1. I got started scrapping in FBLA club in High School. At that point, it was nothing more than layering papers and putting stickers on a page.
2. I became hooked when I started wanting to get pubbed and came online to get advice, and lo and behold, there was a whole underworld to scrapping!
3. I think I'm accomplishing my dreams right now...I have a great family I love to scrap about and I want to create something I'll treasure years from now.

mom2ee said...

I'll answer too.
1. had a nurse at work who was a CM consultant and started as a customer of hers about 10 years ago. I really liked creating, BUT I have too many pages with "floating heads" and sticker sneezes. About 3 years ago, the girls went to a week long "camp" at a LSS that has since closed and I got the bug again. Really started back about a year ago. But have again been creating with the start of SC.
2. I really became hooked when SC debuted and then introduced its design team as i could see what other people did with the same product that I was holding in my own hands and it stirred my creativity and pushed me out of the box.
3. I scrap for all the reasons we all do, to remember and to create a "history" for the girls. I kid about it being my therapy and it is, but it is a way for me to bond with the girls.

Anonymous said...

Here it goes...
1. Growing up I always had a love for crafts and photographs. My dad was a professional photographer and I love all of the moments he captured of our family. I started out by making an album in college as a gift and then I needed my own!
2. I liked scrapbooking in college but got away from it when I graduated, fell in love, and planned a wedding. I still found myself doing a lot of handmade items for our wedding, including our invitations. When I moved to Chicago and knew barely anyone, I started up again and then fell in love with it all over again (but this time I fell REALLY hard) after taking a class at my LSS. Next it was the great products, mags, idea books...and now blogs, websites...(you get the picture).
3. At first it was just for the joy of combining two of my favorite things, crafts and pictures. Now I love that I have great albums to capture unforgetable (and unforgetable) moments. I'm hopefully moving towards capturing today and the little things that make us "us". It's a great source of therapy and creative outlet that other things in life just don't offer. Plus...the friendships I've made are priceless!

Anonymous said...

I love reading about how people got into scrapping! Great post, Nic!

1. I've been creating art since I was a little kid, my grandmother is quite an accomplished painter/illustrator and we spent a lot of time together. In highschool I was always collaging letters from random things for my friends.

2. When my first daughter came along and I realized there was whole stores dedicated to paper, well...I was a goner. I don't think my first page is online anywhere. ;)

3. I don't think I really have a scrapping 'goal' per se..but the one idea I have in my head is for my kids to pull out a book fifty years from now and know "yeah, my mom loved me this much".

Lyn said...

1. How did you get started in scrapbooking? (If you are feeling really brave, link us up to your first layout!)

I started scrapbooking after our first vacation together (my then-boyfriend-now-husband and me!) We went to Europe (my first time) and I wanted to document every stinking photo and moment of our experience in a fun new way. So I made an album, and was hooked!

2. What about scrapping made you fall in love? ;) When did it become more than just putting photos on pretty paper?

I don't know, I'm still really head over heels in love with pretty paper... :) I think it was the time when I discovered the online communities. Finding inspiration in others' work has really been the sparkplug of my craft. I love commenting on others' work and reading what others have to say about mine!

3. What do you hope to "accomplish" with/through your scrapbooking? In other words, why do you do it?

I hope to leave behind documentation - journaling and photo- of our lives together. Most of my scrapbook pages are about our vacations together and family/loved ones. I hope to create tons of albums that my husband, family, and friends will be thrilled to look at again and again!

Elisa said...

1. It was when I was trying to make a lifestory book for my daughter. I was doing it digital and thinking, that is not looking too good, maybe I can find some inspiration in the net?

2. I really got addicted once I found an Irish forum for crafters and they were organizing a crop (the first ever Irish one, we think), and I thought, I wanna go too. There were a bunch of really nice girls, some classes and an stuff to buy. Heaven!

3. Scrapbooking makes me happy, and that is enough. I hope my children will find an insight in their early lives reading my notes, when they group up.

Sweet Peripety said...

1. How did you get started in scrapbooking? I have always been creative, in music (piano and voice), writing, sketching, other art forms. Also photography. It was just combining those, and especially my photography passion, that evolved from nature sketchbooks and scrapbooks to my own wedding memories after college, and then I did my first miniscrapbook of Ella when she was just months old.
2. What about scrapping made you fall in love? ;) When did it become more than just putting photos on pretty paper? The ability to design something by myself that was so memorable and meaningful- even if it was not perfect. It didn't help that I got lots of oohs and ahhhs from friends and family LOL!

3. What do you hope to "accomplish" with/through your scrapbooking? In other words, why do you do it? I think a lot of my purpose of scrapbooking is very selfish if I can be honest. As a stay at home mom it's somthing that I can accomplish- on my own time and without anyone giving me orders or anything. Also, it's a major MAJOR creative outlet. I go crazy when I can't be creative somehow. And, I really desire to leave some sort of legacy and history by recording ANY small or large scale memory.

Anonymous said...

1. I always collected memories... pictures, letters, sketches, little items that I would keep in my journals, which by my visual nature were art journals. I did that even in grade school. A group of my friends and I created an "alternative" yearbook, which really was a scrapbook type of page for each of us. I just loved and love playing with colors and ideas.
2. I did a way too standard scrapbook of our wedding, over 10 years ago. I thought it had to be more "formal" than my journal doodles I guess. I wasn't that happy with it. That Halloween my mother died ... I had to do the hertitage album, this huge need to write down all the family stories, the ones she had told me all my life about her parents (who died before I was born), her brother, her family history... all of it. I wanted to be able to share those memories of her's that were so meaningful to her and to me with my children who would never know her. My father had passed about when I was a baby, so I wrote to my aunts passed copies around in the mail for people to identify and tell the stories behind them. I think in many ways it helped us grieve and celebrate all at once. I also allowed myself to be much more creative, freed myself of expectations on how it should look and go deeper into journaling and being able to include "art" within it's pages since that was my mother and father's love. It was such a great experience and a healing one I just got swept away with it.
3. To capture family history, our times, daily life and have a creative outlet. I am doing this for my children as well. We all want to know our beginnings... and sometimes we need reminders how the songs went ;-)
egads sorry for the length of the response!
Anne
aka anniescraps

Cecilia said...

http://cilla-cilla.blogspot.com/2008/01/ett-gott-skratt.html

He he, that's my first layout :)

1. A friend showed me her albums, I did a small mini at her place and then I started for real.
2. Patterned paper is what got me hooked. The big obsession came when I started blogging and took part in forums on the internet.
3.At first it was all about making pretty albums for my kids, but now it's all about being creative and being able to relax from ordinary life... The pretty albums is a bonus;)

matushka said...

1. I started actual scrapbooking in college when I wanted to put together something that documented my fraternity's pledge class... but even when I was in elementary school I would take pictures and carefully put them into magnetic albums with captions for every one!
2. I have a paper addiction and that's where the obsession started. (This may be related to my fabric obsession too!) I love to collect beautiful patterns and (hopefully) use them on my pages! I joined a couple of different clubs several years ago and started getting a lot more accomplished than just collecting supplies. :)
3. My goal changes over time. Sometimes I scrap to record moments and create a history for my dd. Sometimes I scrap to make gifts for others... especially those hard-to-buy-for peeps! The more I scrap, though, the more it's just for me. It's something I enjoy and it makes me happy.

Anonymous said...

My love of photography lead me to scrapbooking...In high school I always had a camera in tow....would save memrobilia from football programs to prom tickets....all stored away in an old fashion very large scrapbook...you know the kind I mean. When my kids were born...about 17 years ago I would add my photos to magnetic albums and include the cards and misc. things...my idea of a scrapbook. When my girls were about 3 and 5 I came across Creative Memories at a craft show and I was hooked. I have come along way since then....Scrapbooking is a daily part of my life and I would not have it any other way...it is what I do...It is what I love.
peace
KIm

liz mataraza said...

ooh! fun!
1. 1997 with CM. i went to a party, completely clueless. didn't get back into it until 2000 when my roommate got her cm album out and i said, "ooh, i have one of those!" became 'hard-core' in 2004.
2. i went to my first non-CM crop in 2004 at my lss. a week later i was working there and then people began to ask me what i thought about pages, products, etc. wow, me! how exciting!
3. i hope that someday when i'm gone, those i leave behind will enjoy what i've put together for them. that's all. for them to just sit down, reminisce and have a laugh or two...that is completely worth it! (like it's sooo hard to enjoy doing all that 'work').
liz

Anonymous said...

1. . My mom was artsy crafty so I definitely get my crafty side from her! I remember always making collages, I loved cutting pictures and working with glue to create my own little masterpieces! Little did I know, I was scrapbooking!!!

2. After the birth of my first daughter, I became hooked. Trevis, My dh, never had many pictures of him as a child, so he is a big fan of me documenting our roles as parents and family.

3. I just loved the creative outlet if gives me. But mostly, it's the pure joy I get from seeing my girls pulling out these albums to look and remember! I'm just glad to see their love of memories is as strong as mine!

Ami said...

1.I got started in scrapbooking when my oldest dd was born. I wanted to document EVERYHTING about her. I was makingmy own style (can we say construction paper, scotch tape, post it notes???) when I was invited to a Creative Memories party. I bought a black pen at the party...but called the consultant the next day and got what I needed (about $80 worth). I have never looked back.

2. I have always loved paper. I love my family. What fun to play with paper and photos of my family at the same time. I LOVE the idea of creating AND documenting things. I want my girls to know how I felt about them from before they were born and beyond.....I have even written a letter to them, describing my labor and delivery with them. Details. I remember, when I asked me mom about my birth (when I was pregnant) and she couldn't remember much. I was sad about that. I want my girls to be able to know about their beginnings...

3. I do it for my family. To document us. Their childhood. Their life and times.
AND...I love to play with paper and the such. It's a no-brainer!!!

Jennifer said...

My turn!
(1) I have been scrapping since birth. I think I came out of the womb with a pair of scissors in my hands. I made tons of albums with pictures and stories about Kirk Cameron, Michael J. Fox, etc etc. when I was young. I need to find those bad boys at my mom's house. :)
(2) I got into "modern" scrapbooking after my first son was born. I think my first scrap magazine was the 2004 Hall of Fame issue and I realized there was this whole really cool scrap world out there. And I got to buy supplies.
(3) My goal is to be rich and famous. And I want a castle made out of patterned paper and chipboard. Nah... I'd just love to be able to keep having fun. Hopefully my kids will enjoy my passion, but it really is for me. I'd like to continue to pub enough to keep feeding my need for new goodies. lol.
Great post!