Scrapbooking: Back in the Day...

I've been scrapbooking for around 17 years. In that time, things have changed A LOT! From albums to products to styles in general, the industry has really evolved.

That evolution is quite (painfully!!!) evident in my early scrapbooks! All of us who have been scrapbooking since those "early days" have old pages that make us cringe. We all would do things differently now. But I vow not to worry TOO MUCH about those pages and I will not take time to re-do them. Part of the process is seeing how you evolve as a memory keeper!

So you may recall that I've been converting my post-bound albums to 3-ring binders. In the process, I had to go back and finish the last of my very old strap-hinge albums, originally produced by Creative Memories and then by Westrim. I have some of both.

 

Back in the day, Memory Bound, the store where I teach, offered album imprinting on covers and spine labels. In fact, that's where the name "Memory Bound" came from. It's a service that eventually proved too difficult to offer. Luckily, most of my cloth-type albums were imprinted before we stopped this service.

 

 In this particular album, I had several pages that strangely didn't have journaling, which is very odd because journaling (to me) is the most important part of the page. But after re-visiting those 16-year old pages, I can remember how much I came to dislike those albums (with their side-loading page protectors) and what a pain it was to work with them. So I'm sure that's why I just abandoned the journaling and moved ahead to the post-bound albums, which were such a huge improvement at the time!

Fortunately I had kept (was there any doubt? LOL) the memorabilia for the events in the album, so I was able to use that information to create some journaling. I also added more stuff to this handy pocket page as part of finishing this puppy up!

 

I went page by page, measuring out the space for journaling then coming up with appropriate text. It's truly amazing how much I have forgotten but I managed to figure things out! I cut up the pieces then adhered them to the spaces I left blank.

I can barely believe I had to go back 16 years and add journaling, of all things. *shaking my head*

 

As tedious as that process was, it was interesting (and scary!) to see how products and styles have changed. In this album, I must have purchased my square punch (squares are everywhere!) and my first pack of sticker letters.

I was also transitioning from Creative Memories products to those carried at Memory Bound which was newly opened. So through the album, you can see that I gradually added in more stickers, a product I rarely use today. Back in the day, we carried an entire wall of stickers at the store, so of course I could find sombrero stickers!

 

Paper piecing was very popular back in the day (it's coming back now!) and Bailey loved assembling the little paper dolls like this one. She had her own set of chalks, too, for adding little details. As you can see in these photos so far, everything is very straight on my pages -- that is still my style.

But at some point I started tilting elements and silhouetting photos (cutting away background) as shown in this birthday party page. Tilting photos is still OK in my opinion (although I mentally just can't do it!) but silhouetting photos is something I've always regretted. I think that it tends to draw the eye to the shape and away from the subject, which is contrary to the intent.

There's that handy square punch! I still have it and use it, by the way. You can't go wrong with basic shapes!

 

 Bailey made this page featuring our fish, Blossom and some of her fish artwork. I found myself adding some journaling,16 years later...

Here's another example of a page I would not make in this way today. It features a silhouetted photo at the top left and lots of tilting as well as awkward and uneven spacing. Border stickers were all the rage back in the day, and I sure made ample use of them! I also drew out many of my own titles, something you'll not see me doing today. I wish I were better at it!

This is a classic way we used to make titles back then, featuring sticker letters and squares on either end.

 

At some point during this period, I decided to try tearing. The "Tearing Years" (or perhaps we should say "Tearing Weeks", more accurately) are still referenced at Memory Bound. Tearing paper sort of freaked me out back then because I couldn't completely control what it looked like. :) We still laugh about that, as well as my ongoing inability to tilt elements without overthinking the degree of tilt!

 

 Here we see more tearing and tilting, along with another paper-pieced doll made by Bailey. You'll notice that brads and eyelets started to make an appearance here.  I continued to experiment with tearing and tilting until I realized that they weren't my thing. Both made my head hurt and just didn't yield the results I had in mind.

I still firmly believe that in scrapbooking, you have to make a few (or a lot!) of pages before you figure out your personal style. In the process, you'll probably make a few (or a lot!) of duds, but you'll hone in on the products and styles that best represent you and what you want your memory keeping to be. This is something I always share with beginning scrapbookers and, now that I have this album done, maybe I'll share it with them, too, so they can see how styles have changed over the years, as well as the kinds things I wish I hadn't done! :)

How about you? What do you remember about scrapbooking, back in the day? Have you ever gone back and re-done a page? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

jp