Monday, 4 October 2021

When two worlds collide

Once upon a time, I was a scrapbooker.  My spare room had boxes of papers, card, embellishments, Washi tape and all manner of random bits and pieces that might come in useful on a layout.  I subscribed to courses run by Shimelle (and 'met' a lot of lovely people along the way!) I regularly attended two crop days a month, one just outside of Colchester and the other headed in the opposite direction to Enfield.  However, space for albums ran out, enthusiasm waned and a few years later, I was an ex-scrapbooker.  I donated a fair bit of paper and card to a friend who is a childminder for crafty activities, threw away all the tiny scraps and bits and bobs which realistically were never going to be used and held on to one large box of card, paper and embellishments which were too pretty to get rid of not to mention a whole heap of alphabet letters. 

Fast forward to Wednesday last week.  My husband is 'attending' an online art class via zoom which he is really enjoying.  He finished the meeting and mentioned that their homework was to make a notebook to make sketches in.  The brief was to have a firmer card cover, with the inside pages random kinds of paper, plain, textured, patterned etc.  Sewn together to make a journal.  How was he going to tackle that?  What on earth was he going to find to use?  

"I've got just the things for that" I said as I disappeared into the utility room and rummaged through the box of things that I'd kept.  See, I knew it would come in useful again one day!

I'd like to say that I gave him a selection of papers and left him to his own devices but clearly he needed direction!  I couldn't stop myself from interfering offering advice.  I think I had as much fun doing it as he did!  


Having made the sketchbook, naturally I had to make a few suggestions about the way you could layer up vellum or tissue to tone down the pattern of the paper underneath.  The musical score printed on the paper on this page was quite distinct, but toned down nicely with a piece of tissue on top, not to mention giving an unusual texture to his drawing!

Apparently he's fine to continue on his own now and doesn't need any further help/interference.  Spoilsport!

This has added weight to the discussion onto whether or not I needed to keep all those bits and pieces in that box when I probably wasn't going to be scrapbooking again!  Never say never eh?



4 comments:

Patio Postcards said...

How fun was working on that project. As a scrapbooker with a far too large a stash, I'd vote to keep. Who knows what the grandkids will need for school projects in the coming months(years).

This West London Life said...

I'm also voting to keep ... lots of crafty projects in the future with the grandchildren. And what a beautiful drawing.

Karen said...

It's a lovely book. Keep the stash. You never know when it will become useful to someone once again!

Barbara Eads said...

You've given me an idea for a post. I haven't shared my scrapbook room in a long time. Considering I only make one layout a month for the last group I have going, I should probably clean out!