Windchimes

scrapbooking

I spent a good part of yesterday on a project my dad wanted done the day before he decided he wanted it done, namely, taking the pages and photos from Mom and Dad's wedding album and putting them into a scrapbook. Dad bought the book and other materials after recovering the wedding album from storage. It was falling apart, which should be no surprise, considering it's 46 years old.

I'm very happy with how it turned out. I avoided the temptation presented everytime I go into a scrapbooking store. If you've ever been into one of those, you know how aisles of enticing artsy-craftsy stuff make you think you want to get into more projects in less time than is humanly possible. Scads of pretty doo-dads, reams of patterned paper, beautiful album covers, shadowbox frames...and you've got hundreds of pictures still in the developing envelopes in which the store returned them to you.

Still, I considered that this particular scrapbook should have all the class of simplicity. The pages of the original wedding album were bound with a plastic spiral binder, so I used patterning scissors to trim off the edges with the rows of holes, for the "guest" and "gifts" pages. I simply took the 8x10 black&whites (slightly yellowed with time now, but not too badly...just enough to give them a sort of antique patina) out of their plastic sleeves. Dad provided some archival quality sticking tabs, so I used those to fasten the pages and the photos to each side of 12x12 white cardstock pages, then slipped the pages into vinyl page protectors. The slightly yellowed photos make a striking contrast with the white cardstock, and the whole effect... is just classy. I found one little decoration that I thought would enhance the scrapbook, a single paper longstemmed red rose with a smaller such rose nestled across it. That went on the bottom of the first page, the page with the names of the bride and groom, the attendants, the officiating minister and the place and date of the ceremony, the first page of the album.

Since this was my first time seriously trying to put a scrapbook together, I went to the scrapbooking store three times yesterday. The first time, I had run out of plastic sheet protectors. Had to go again because they didn't have the exact brand of sheet protectors for the brand of album I was working with. That necessitated bringing a page for Valerie, the lady helping me at the store, to compare with the sheet protectors they had available. She found some for me that are so close it's hard to notice any difference. The third time I went, we (Joseph was helping me) had put the album together, but I wasn't sure it was fastened correctly or securely, so I wanted the advice of someone who has put together lots of scrapbooks. Valerie told me that, yes, we had fastened it correctly, it was secure, and the book looked just the way it should look. She enjoyed seeing the pictures and told me the book had turned out beautifully. We also talked about how much the schoolkids of my mother's generation must have had to practice their handwriting. She told me she sometimes asked her grandmother to write in her scrapbooks.

So, I'm looking forward to getting the scrapbook back to my dad. I think he's gonna be real happy with it.

J.H. Larrew
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