A bit of history...a bit of heritage...a few layouts

I have been slowly (but not so methodically) scrapbooking my family's heritage photos. My mother and father both had a large collection of old photo albums -- the sort with black pages that held the photos in with photo corners (really the best kind). In the summer of 2004, I cornered my mother and had her go through each of the albums with me; she and my father both tried to remember as much as they could about the photos, the people and events they portrayed. Of course, they did not remember everyone or every place -- but they did remember alot. I coerced my mother into allowing me to take the albums home (they lived in Canada at the time, and I was in Connecticut). I promised to scan the photos and return the albums. I started the scans right away in my (not-so) spare time. Sadly, my mom passed away unexpectedly just three months later. I cherish the photos and the stories my parents had about the photos. I did finish scanning everything by Christmas time that year, and made photo CDs for my 5 siblings. It was an emotional Christmas.

It took me nearly three years to dive into these boxes of photos. I have slowly been scrapbooking them -- some days it is too hard to see my mom in the pictures, so I just pass by that pile of photos to be scrapped that day and work on other things. I did three layouts this week using the photos that I wanted to share, though! I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Graduatin' Gals 1946: The page at the top is of my Mother and her friends celebrating their high school graduation in 1946. As you can see, I scanned Mom's diploma. Also, if you look close, you will see that I placed a pull tab behind the top right picture; my mother had handwritten a list of who was in the picture on the back of the photo, so I scanned that, too. After all, it is in her handwriting! I stamped the title, the bistro chairs and French Girls. After I stamped the title and the images, I traced the title and colored selected edges of the images with colored pencil to make them stand out. It is a gorgeous soft highlighting effect that pops IRL.
Honeymooners 1948: The pages above are from my parent's honeymoon. I scanned the little newspaper clipping (Travelogue) that was in my Mom's album -- it is a charming reminder of how things were done back then. A note on this one -- the "Travelogue" actually covers a stamping mistake! We all make them, don't we? In my hurry to stamp the title "The Honeymooners," I picked up the "9" instead of the "e" -- unmounted stamps are backwards! I think the title works just as well as "honeymooners" -- well, at least it works better than "th9 honeymooners" !

Je T'Aime: This last layout celebrates a photo taken of my parents in 1972, at my oldest sister's wedding. I love my dad's sideburns -- he was so stylish! The journaling is on the tag is tucked behind the photo -- it talks about how much in love my parents were, and what good role models they were for marriage. I love this photo of my mom -- she is thin, happy, and looking directly into the camera -- and I know SHE loved this photo, too.

When I finished this layout, I couldn't help feeling that it needed one more thing. My scrapping friend Val suggested that I add a bit of glitter, so I used a fine-tipped glitter pen to trace the letters. I love the effect (see below). Oh -- the Eiffel tower is from a stencil from the Club Scrap kit -- I used Tricia Morris' fabulous duoprinting technique with Glimmer Mists to create the effect. It shimmers in real life (and yes, all of that came in my Club Scrap Kit, too! All of the pages were created using Club Scrap's Bistro kit (July '07). I just love that club!

Thanks for sharing a bit of my heritage with me...sorry this post was so long, but I hope you enjoyed the layouts and the stories...

Pat