P365 - Day 28 scrapbooking

Before I ventured into the world of scrapbooking I thought it was an expensive hobby for American women who had lots of money and too much time on their hands. ‘Why don’t they just put them in an album and be done with it?’ I used to ask myself.

My first trip into a scrapbooking shop was a terrifying experience, matched only by my first trip into a baby shop.

What is all this stuff?

What do you use that for?

Look at all that paper! Ribbons? Buttons? What’s that got to do with photos? (I still haven’t gotten over my aversion to buttons on pages, in much the same way that I’m resistant to stitching.) 

Brads? Isn’t Brad a guy’s name? How many different types of adhesive are there? What’s the point of having all that lovely patterned paper if you’re going to cover it up with photos? It costs HOW MUCH??!!

Where do I even start?

The purchase of a scrapbooking magazine, followed by a trip to one of those ‘craft clearance’ events, resulted in my first ever layout. 

This was closely followed by a beginners class at a local scrapbooking shop, a magazine subscription, and many many purchases. Followed by many more purchases.

My stash grew, the space available to hold the stash shrank. My ‘discretionary’ money disappeared pretty quickly every fortnight.

I started to make some pages. Some were good, some were a little embarrassing, (some were downright terrible), but I pressed on regardless. I ‘scraplifted’ ideas from layouts published in the magazines and I participated in online sketch challenges (for the uninitiated, this means taking a sketch outline of a layout and basing your own layout on the sketch – a great help if you’re stuck for ideas).

In early 2010 I started going to scrapbooking nights at our local scrapbooking shop, where I met some wonderful ladies who do some fabulous layouts and who I later joined on the PCA forum, where I met even more like-minded scrappers.

I’ve found everyone who I’ve met connected to scrapbooking is so friendly and helpful, always willing to offer suggestions and to help out.

If you’d asked me five years ago whether scrapbooking was for me, I’d have laughed and said not in a million years. What a waste of time and money!

But then again there was a time when, if you’d asked me if I was going to have a child, I’d have laughed too . . .

Times change, people change, opinions change. Turns out my opinion of scrapbooking was way off course and it’s become a huge part of my life. 

And so today's photo is what I did at scrapbooking tonight: