THE SHOEBOX FAMILY

OK, I'll say it again: Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging, even when it's good stuff! But, here I am, only slightly retired from my term as a Let's Scrap Design Team Member. Slightly, you ask? I have been invited to challenge that site's 3,000 members in November to do something slightly different. Watch for it here!

While I remain active on the Let's Scrap site, I have also aligned myself with a new site called Bella Creations to learn about a design style I have long admired, but been afraid to try. Something called vintage. Now, as a wine aficionado of good (and long) standing, I know that vintage refers to the year in which a wine was produced. It can also refer to the clothing or style of clothing worn during a certain period--like the 20's, the 50's, or even as recent as the 90's. Likewise, cars. It then follows that a scrapbooker would use papers and embellishments with an older or even antique-y feel. My reason for wanting t0 learn this very creative design style is to scrapbook some VERY old photos (as old as 1915 in the case of the photo below). This is going to be a long hard road for me to travel, as my scrapbooking design style has always been very simple, using clean straight lines, and with minimal intrusion from embellishments--you will recall my earliest struggle with using more than one patterned paper on a layout!

I am sure, like mine, most families have a shoebox full of old photos. We find that, when someone sends us photos, we are not allowed to throw them away, so we collect them in one place--usually a box. Each family passes this collection of photos from generation to generation, until, finally, the people in the photos can no longer be identified. In the scrapbooking world, these photos have come to be called Shoebox People or, in the case of my layout title, Shoebox Family.

When you think of it, most of us have neither the time nor, frankly, the inclination to open up a box of photos of people we don't know! But just maybe, if the presentation were a bit more "attractive," we just might be tempted. I am hoping that my children and my children's children might be so tempted. Along with scrapbooking a "Book About Me" (check out this group on Let's Scrap), I want to scrapbook a book about my family's ancestors. Maybe these family members will not be all identifiable by name, but wouldn't it be fun to know that you have your great grandmother's nose?

I have begun this vintage scrapbook with a photo of Mrs. Conner's 75th birthday, taken in 1915. I am not sure that her actual birthday was January 11, as documented in the lower left-hand corner of the photo, or merely the date it was celebrated. I would like to think it was--as that is my birthday, too. As my sister, brother and I are now the senior members of our family (Wonders), we could only deduce that Mrs. Conner is our great-great grandmother on our father's side. But, really, how cool is that? I found this photo especially interesting, too, in that, other than Mr. Conner, this photo is of the women and children of the family. I think that might have been a bit unusual for the time.

So here is my layout! It is still evolving, but I wanted to share it with you now--you may see it again. I initially posted this layout in the gallery on the Bella Creations website with neither the flowers nor flourish in the bottom right-hand corner. I asked for suggestions on how to complete it--it appeared naked to me. One of the "Bella" Design Team members, Maggie, made the suggestion of adding those elements. I could not be more pleased with the flowers! However, the flourish I used sort of disappears against the background paper, so I will need to work on that a bit more. It is also my intention to use some hidden journaling on a tag behind the photo, just peaking out a smidge on the left-hand side.

Here's a close-up of the flowers and title:

And of the chipboard buttons with frayed twine ties:

Thanks for taking the time to come by and to read my blog. Time now for me to "go forth and create!"