Vintage Chique & A Freebie

Can you believe I made it 5 days of continuous posting?  Pick your jaws up because there's more to come! 

Today I'm showing you a few layouts from Lynn Griffin's kit Vintage Chique.  I got to do a few more of my heritage pics with this kit which I love to do so I am a happy girl! 

Let's start off with the reason I scrapbook.  There really are a few reasons.  For starters...to put a name, a time and a relationship with the faces in the photos...this one is pretty obvious and if you scrapbook...probably among your reasons as well.

Secondly...to tell the story.  Now these pages that I did with this kit don't have much journaling.  Mostly because I don't know much about the people in them.  If I'm lucky, I have a name and possibly a date.  I want the next generation and the next after that to have the stories that go with my photos.  I want them to know my words and my personality through them.  I would kill to have a scrapbook of my Grandma's life.  She was such an amazing woman and I would love to be able to read her words and her thoughts and her emotions, especially now that I can't ask her to tell me. 

I would love for my mom to retire and spend the rest of her life writing about her life.  She is such a gifted writer and I would love to have her stories in writing for my girls and my future grandchildren and great grandchildren to know her.  I have a million pictures of her (okay...maybe not a million since she runs from the camera or puts her hand in front of her face...I guess her hands will be well documented.  LOL!) but they don't tell the story of who she is and how she came to be the amazing person she is.  I know there are stories I don't know that I would love to read...even if it's much later in my life.

When I started scrapbooking, I thought it was all about the pictures.  Now I feel like the photos are only second to the stories we'll pass on.  My view on this changed when I attended a CTMH convention in 2006.  One of the keynote speakers was Tracey White (former editor for Creating Keepsakes and author).  She really made a light bulb come on in my head and the more she spoke, the more I felt like she was the reason I was there.

She put up a picture of a little girl at a birthday party...balloons, gifts, cake, the whole bit.  She said something along the lines of "We can see that this is a birthday party and that she is happy.  These things are obvious and tell part of the story.  What we can't see is how her mom felt on that day as her little girl turned six.  What we can't see is that she was so excited she couldn't sleep the night before.  We can't see the real story, the real emotion behind the photo."  Now I know for sure that those are not the same words she used but you get the idea. 

She also took the pressure to scrapbook chronologically off my shoulders.  She gave me permission (and I know...why did she even need to...but she did) to scrapbook the photos that evoked emotion first.  She gave me permission to forget the who, what, why, where and when of the photos and to simply journal how that photo made me feel or the thoughts it brought to mind.  I cannot even begin to tell you how incredible that was to me.  It was a foreign concept. 

Here I had been thinking all this time that I had to scrapbook every photo and in order for my children's books to be perfect.  I was already a mother to 3 and Lexi was already 7 at that time and I'd only scrapbooked her first 6 months.  I hadn't even begun Kaylee's book and Izzy's?  Yeah right!  And I'd been scrapbooking for 7 years already!  Sure I had a few random pages done but really I was so scared to scrapbook anything because what if I missed a picture to go on that page or what if I forgot those moments  from Lexi's first bath because I was busy documenting the here and now?  I was petrified to scrapbook and I didn't realize it until just then.

I came home from that convention with a totally different perspective on scrapbooking.  I no longer had the pressure to do it "the right way."  I could just scrap what I wanted when I wanted and I didn't have to know the details.  I could simply journal whatever I wanted on that page.  It was my page after all and it was my story I wanted to tell.  It was my love for my children that I wanted to come across in those pages.  Would they really care that they received another barbie on their 4th birthday and that the cake was white with blue frosting?  NO!  They would care that on their 4th birthday I spent the entire day before creating the masterpiece of a cake that was a barbie swimming pool complete with water slide and hot tub because they had requested it and helped me design it.  They would care that we spent hours at the table making it look just perfect and that we giggled and laughed about a silly story she told as we did it.   They would care that we had a frosting fight once the cake was decorated.  They would care that we stayed up late that night and watched their favorite movie on the couch.  They would care about the real story...the real emotions that happened that day.

And that is what I wanted them to remember.   I want them to feel my love in my words.  Needless to say, I am now continually working on 42 different albums...all out of order but all full of my real emotions and my real love for them.  They will have those stories when I'm long gone and I hope that they'll enjoy them as they are meant to. 

Take this layout I posted earlier this week for instance...

I could have scrapbooked that we were at the Wildlife Refuge in Bonner's Ferry Idaho in May 2009 for a field trip but instead, I took that photo and wrote about my real emotions.  I have known these girls since kindergarten.  I know that they don't always get along like they appear to be in this photo.  I know that this photo started out as a pic of one particular girl who didn't want her photo taken but when her friends all jumped in, she smiled a huge smile and they all laughed together.  Imagine if I had just written Wildlife Refuge in Bonner's Ferry.  May 2009 Field Trip and their names...which way will your story have an impact?  What will future generations carry on from your hard work?  Make it worth it...tell your story...even the sad ones.  You'll find it was more worth it in the end.

WOW!  I guess I kind of went off there, didn't I?  Who knew that two photos could do that to me?  LOL!  Well, these two photos caused this.  These two photos are of people my mom and I couldn't identify.   There were no names on the back and no dates either.  Simply nameless, timeless beauties.  This is why I scrapbook.

Credits:  Vintage Chique by Lynn Griffin

This second page is much the same.  I know who the people are in these photos but really, I didn't know my Great Great Grandmother because she was gone before I was here but I love the information that was given in her obituary...it shows a part of my family's history that I was unaware of.  She lived to be 100!  That's amazing in itself.  But to read how she came to America was exciting for me.  I then added photos of my Great Grandfather Joseph...I didn't know him at all.  I don't know many stories about him nor will I ever, probably.  I also added a photo of my Grandpa Phillips (Richard) who I also don't feel like I knew at all.  I can remember his smile and his laugh and his voice but I really don't know much about him.  Then there is my dad (Robert) who I do know but would love to have his stories documented as well.

Credits:  Vintage Chique by Lynn Griffin

This last page documents my Uncle Gary's wedding to my Aunt Lori.  I don't know much about this day so I haven't included any journaling but I wanted to at least document it and put a name with those beautiful faces in those funky suits!  LOL!

Credits:  Vintage Chique by Lynn Griffin

So now that you've scrolled down through all of my ramblings, how about a freebie? 

You can find the kit here at Digital Arts Cafe.

You can download your QP here.

Enjoy! 

Comments

[Ruth]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You finally straightened me out! You know I always comment on your journaling & think to myself "I wish I could journal like that." You made me realize that I CAN JOURNAL LIKE THAT.
You have a way with words, Wendy. don't ever change. Just seeing your LOs & reading your blog is an amazing help to me. You ROCK!
Ruthy

[Jeanne]

What a wonderful post, Wendy. You have truly helped all the scrappers who read this, myself included. You've spotlighted the reasons we all are scrapbooking, even if we didn't know it (realize it, or put it into words) before.

You say your mother is the gifted writer...I say you take after your mother in ways you may not recognize.

Two simple words that are truly heartfelt, thank you.

[Erin]

Thank you so much for this blog entry. It really struck a cord with me. I'm new to scrapping and these are some great lessons to learn before I spend endless hours scrapping without thinking to tell the story. I guess I already have a couple of pages that I could brush up with some better journaling.
I also love your vintage scraps. I have a ton of old pictures, but didn't really know what the point of scrapping them would be. Now I see I can help pass along what little info I have to those who come after me.
With warm gratitude,
~e