In the Depths of Winter

In the midst of this strange and frigid winter, I have been scrapbooking summer photographs. Not surprisingly, it does not make me any warmer, but it has sent me looking for my favorite winter photographs and layouts.

Most of my summer photos are from my beloved Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.  We are there every summer, but we have been there only once during the winter.  It is an other-worldly place under the snow.  You can hear the frozen lake shifting and cracking all day and all night.  The snow is measured not in inches, but in feet. There have been winters there that exceed even their expectations with dire consequences. As a result, year round residents have taken to shovelling their roofs.

I took the photo above during that one winter trip.  It was back when my boys still wore snowsuits and boots when the flakes began to fly, back when a trip to New Hampshire in the winter would be considered an adventure rather than something to be endured, back when sliding down the plowed mountain of snow at the top of the driveway was still considered awesome.  

Unfortunately, the layouts from those days are in old Creative Memories albums that measure 12x15, before I had a scanner.  Going back to scan them now is a place I do not want to go.

So, instead, on this cold winter's day, I thought I would share some of my favorite winter layouts from the last few years.

My husband took these fabulous photos of our boys and our beloved dog, Molly.  The new pup loves snow, too, but not quite this much.

That is a diecut snowman coated with beeswax that was melted in a Melting Pot. The letters were coated with the wax as well. It was great fun painting on the wax.

This paper was tough to work with as I did not want to cover up the wonderful snow image on the right side.  That is mica for the title.  If I recall correctly, I put stickers on the mica and then added tons of ink, peeled off the stickers, added embossing powder and heated it - from below to prevent the powder from blowing away.

This layout is from last spring.  The snowflakes are wooden ones from the craft store, inked and embossed with various colors of embossing powder.  The "stiches" are fake - I pierced the paper and then used a white marker to simulate stitches.  I have no patience for sewing on a page.

This was another layout from just last year after the big blizzard (Nemo, I believe they called it) in February. The snowflakes are from EK Success (Jolie's). The cardstock was sprayed and dribbled with Glimmer Mist.

This layout is very old (2006) and was published is some magazine or other that no longer exists.  

These photos are from the night before Nemo last February  I cut up the lace paper since I really never know what to do with it and added lots of embossing powder.  I seem to use a lot of embossing powder of winter layouts.

 Despite the snow this winter, I have not taken a lot of snow photographs so I am still hoping (and praying and begging Mother Nature) for more snow.  Those of you who know me know that I am a snow junkie.  It is the kind of weather I love best.

In The Beginning - Again.

These photos were in a tiny photo book with a plastic binder.  I removed them from the book, but left the border.  I was able to use my mother's handwriting since two photographs were exactly the same.

As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more attached to old photos - of my children (one in college and one about to be), of my brothers, of my parents and, of course, of me.  I tell those jaded children of mine that they, too, will one day be glad I took all those photos of them over the years. I tell them that they will be glad that I had them printed out and that I put them in albums rather than leaving them on tiny camera drives or in random folders on my computer.

My children have outgrown their tolerance for my camera.

And this leaves me in a difficult position since I need to scrapbook.

The solution?  I started scrapbooking myself.

A few years ago, my mother sent me photo boxes filled with photographs - those little 3x3 pictures with white borders.  They were all curled up, spooning the ones before and after them in their yellow envelopes from the developer.  Some were stuck to each other, but I managed to separate them with a little bit of alcohol. Fortunately, that did not harm the pictures themselves. There were multiple prints of some photos. Others had descriptions on the back, written by my mother in marker - black marker.  Miraculously, the writing had not bled through even though some forty years or more had passed.  There were three with the same description on the back - "First day, first grade."  However, I was wearing different dresses in the three photographs and my hair was longer in each.  Clearly, they were not all from the first day of first grade.

I began by sorting the photos as best I could - by year, guessing in many cases as I went along. Using an old album that I had made in high school (the kind with the manila paper and little silver posts), I was able to make fairly educated guesses as to dates.  The places I almost always recognized as being our house, the house where my mom's parents lived and the house where my dad's mom lived.  The rest  - the vast majority, in fact, were taken in New Hampshire on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.  Those were a bit harder to sort by year.

For a few months, I lived with myself - enjoying old cracked photographs of me, my parents and then, after a while, my brothers.  It was great fun getting to buy the baby embellishments that did not exist when my boys were babies.  It was even more fun getting to use pink - paint, paper, glitter, ink.  So much pink!

I have finished my childhood, my toddler years and my teen years of which, sadly, there were few photos. There is virtually nothing from high school - no photos of my school, my friends, my house - nothing.  I have finished my freshman year of college, but it took up only two pages because, again, I took so few photos. Were I attending college now, well, that would be a different story and yet I cannot convince my boys to take more photos of themselves and their friends either.  I think it is a girl thing.

And so, here are the first few photos of my own album.  I wonder, in the years to come, who will look at it?

This is the title page.  I had to scan the photo with my parents as the color had faded to the point where it was almost impossible to see anyone.  Photoshop is an amazing tool.

My mother had a sleepover for my cousins when I was fairly new.  I always liked how this one turned out.

Ah, pink!  The image on the lower left side was stamped on Stampbord - a wonderful substance for stamping.

The source for all the supplies used on these images was lost when Google deleted all the photos.

Trying Again

It has been sometime since all of my photos disappeared from my blog posts.  I had thought - and written - that I would just give up on blogging since I found that singularly annoying and disappointing.  However, instead of jumping ship, I thought I would just start again.

So, in the near future, I will begin again.  However, I am going to change the name of this blog to reflect the new start.  The next post will be from ihadaphotograph.blogspot.com.  Since my blog used to be as much about the story and the pictures as the layout and I enjoyed that much more that just posting how I made the layout, I am going to go back to that format.

The title of the blog comes from the song, Bookends, by Simon and Garfunkel:

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I had a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.

The line might be "I have a photograph," but that blog title is taken.  Close enough.

Thanks . . . see you soon.

Disappearing Photos

Anyone who has been to my blog in the last few days will see nothing but words and little grey circles with a line through them.  It seems that Google has taken it upon itself to delete all of the photos from all of my posts.

For that I apologize.

There is, however, not a thing I can do about it without going back through every post and reloading all the photos.  Unfortunately, I deleted all the step-by-step photographs.  Besides, who has the time to reload all those photos?

I believe this sounds the death knell for my blog.  It is just too frustrating to pursue this if Google is going to thwart all my efforts.

I cannot even find a way to contact Google about this problem.  I have written a post in their community forum, but am told that I have to change my photo settings back.  I never touched them to begin with.  I am told I have to make my photos public, but I never made them private. I am told I have to restore my photos from the Trash folder, but the Trash folder is empty.

So, that is the end of that.

Thanks, all.  It was fun while it lasted.

Crop Production - Part 2

As promised, here are a few more layouts I completed at the crops I attended back in last September and early November.

Our yard backs up to town woods and we are about the only ones without a fence.  We are also the only ones without any plants. The paper came with the trees.  I just added the sticker letters, the string and the tiny little bird houses and butterfly.  Quick and easy.

Piermont is a lovely little town along the Hudson River in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge.  There is a wonderful path that juts out into the river.  Everyone walks there. I used both a stamp and masks from Tattered Angels for the compass image.  The flowers are chipboard from a source I no longer recall.

I used up a bunch of Tim Holtz Grungeboard circles on this one, adding Distress Stain, Distress Ink, Diamond Glaze and Viva Paint to create the grungy look.

Our puppy, Rooney, is no longer this tiny and has turned into a terror, but her face is still as cute as it was back when we first brought her home. I had picked up the ribbon and paw border at the Scrapbook Expo in Edison, NJ, the same morning I did this layout. The tag/card is from 7 Gypsies.  The journaling is under the tag.

Crop Production - Part 1

Back at the end of September and then again at the beginning of November, I attended two weekend-long scrapbooking events. So, I thought I would share some of the layouts I completed. I usually shoot for about fifteen pages.  I remember the days when I would do thirty!  Those days are long gone.  Gone, too, are the days when I got all my scrapbooking stuff (paper, tools, embellishments, cutting mat, etc.) into the space in one trip. I have it down to a science, but five trips is a little ridiculous!

Anyway, here are a few of layouts from the first weekend.  More layouts in the coming weeks.

I used up a bunch of rub-on stitches in this one.  I have been carrying those things around for YEARS!

And I used up a bunch of chipboard on this one. The polka dots on the flowers were made by putting paint on an embossing folder before running it through the Sizzix.  I don't think I will try that again as it was extremely messy and not entirely successful. My poor Fairy Garden succumbed to the elements just this week.

It is hard to see, but the arrow chipboard  and title are covered with Stickles in a very bright red. It took forever to dry.

I really like how this one turned out with the gears and bicycle paper that came in a magazine!

Again, I got to use up a bunch of old metal letters that I got from QVC many years ago.  I put them in an embossing folder and ran them through a Sizzix machine.  I sanded them to highlight the embossing. The paper is one of the last paper packs offered by Creative Memories before they declared bankruptcy back during the summer. The paper edges are highlighted with gold embossing powder. I love the look on my son's face!

More coming soon!

Backstory Scraps: Scrapbooking Backwards - A Different Way to Scrap

Like everyone else, when I sit down to scrapbook, I start with the photos.  Unlike everyone else, however, the last thing I choose is the background paper. I discovered a while back that my wonderful supply of embellishments - from chipboard shapes to charms to beads and buttons and ribbons - was not getting used because I always had trouble finding just the right thing to match the paper.  So, I decided to try something different and pick the paper after I had chosen everything else.

The key to this system was simple - two plastic dividers, the ones that come with the paper holders.  I don't use those dividers so I trimmed two of them to 12x12 and then taped them together with packing tape.  Folded, it is a background for a one-page layout.  Unfolded, it is a two-page spread.

 

 

So, for a change, I thought I would walk you through what has proven to be the best way for me to create a layout and to use my embellishments.  Now, I warn you.  This is hardly one of my best creations, but you will get the idea.

The next photo in the file folder was this one from Christmas, of my two boys and my nephew. 

Since nothing was coming to me, I dove into my file of ideas, going through my collection of single photo and two-photo layouts. I cut photos out of scrapbook magazines and occasionally print ideas I find on Pinterest.  I am hoping to switch completely to a Pinterest Board for ideas since it is a lot easier to carry around an iPad than an idea folder and you can watch videos and read blog tutorials from that site.

 Once I had a vague idea, I started looking through my drawer of Christmas stuff - paper, embellishments, tags, ribbon, etc. I pulled out two tags, three pieces of tinsel, and a bunch of really old Fastenator staples from Making Memories that I had.  I was really digging up old stuff here.

Next, I worked on the title.  Again, these letters are so old that I can no longer identify them.  They were a variety of colors so I painted them with (old) dimensional paint from Ranger and then coated them with Diamond Glaze.

While they were drying, I tried out a few different papers.  That top one got rejected immediately, but the bottom ones had possibilities.

I trimmed and then tore the red paper, inked the torn section and then added silver embossing powder.

I added a second layer of paper (Coredinations/Tim Holtz), sanded the edges and added silver Distress Paint.  I put a color wash of the Distress Paint on the tag by spreading a thin layer of the paint on with my finger, spritzing with some water and then blotting with a paper towel.

Finally, I picked the background paper (Creative Memories).  I laid everything out one last time to make sure everything worked before gluing and stapled everything down. 

(One quick note - I do not have the Fastenator stapler.  I sold it ages ago because I found that it was much easier to poke holes where the prongs would go with a paper piercer and push the staple through than to use that hopeless tool. My method allows you to put the staples wherever you want.)

 

Like I said, this isn't the most successful layout I have ever done, but it was definitely good enough. 

 

So, if you find that you aren't using your embellishments because they never quite match or work with the papers you have chosen, try scrapbooking backwards - starting with the title and the embellishments, the paint and the ink, and ribbons and buttons - and picking the paper last!