Karen over at memycameraeye has nominated me to take part in a Blog Hop! I am not sure I can do it justice, but here goes! The idea is that I answer four questions and then nominate three more bloggers to carry on next week! I think ideally it is about people who craft but since my scrapbooking and crafting is on a sabbatical at the moment I will try and let you know where I am now and how things were just as I left them!
In case you are coming to me afresh then this is me: mum of five grown up children (yes Kate, 17 is meant to be grown up!) Three live at home full-time and one is away working 8 months a year, whilst the last one is married with three gorgeous girls and lives not too far away.
We run a small but busy manufacturing works from behind our house and life is busy, working in our office 5 or sometimes 6 days a week and juggling the wants and desires of family life as well.
I was an avid scrapbooker, especially with the Just Scrapbooking crew over at Newlyn for five years. I started this just as my Mum went into residential care; she had dementia and was losing a lot of memories and as a response scrapbooking helped me put down on paper some of my own thoughts and memories of my childhood.
About a year ago, life got a little easier, for a number of reasons, our children getting older and more independent mainly, and my husband and I have managed to get out and about for weekends a lot more. The house had a kitchen extension put on (long awaited) and the house was in turmoil most of last year. Also a new baby joined her two sisters to make three grand children under 5 years of age so our free time.. and space to scrapbook was hard to find.. though to be fair the photographic opportunities still pile up! ;-).
Maybe, just maybe , I also am feeling a little less bereft after several years of our whole family really feeling the gap in our lives our Mums left when they died 5 and 6 years ago. Life goes on, memories get easier and you feel less need to be 'in touch' with the old times. Children become adults, children have children, and make new memories of their own and you all move on in the cycle of life.. and it's true, you have to live for now.
Anyway, suffice to say.. life is good, busy but good..
What am I working on now?
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| My scrap desk / mess! |
I still take pictures with an idea of using them in a layout.. sometime.. later.. when I am not so busy..
I have several projects in limbo with my scrapbooking. An 18th birthday album for Jordan (who turned 19 last December) and an ongoing project to plot Zac's course through his Navigation Officer training with Princess Cruises.
I also need to organise the albums I have. I used to do annual ones so I could see the progression of my ability and style but then I started an album for Lisa's girls and lost the flow.
How does my work differ from others of it's kind?
I think I have a kind of busy but 'organised' style, even if I try to get away from it. I tend to labour over a technique on one page and then compliment it with a speed scrapped page to lay beside it as a double page layout.. which I love.. did I say that? ;-)
You can see it on this beach layout...we were working with Monopoly pieces and I used the Monopoly Cornwall edition, the place 'Porthcurno' Lots of layering and I love the sealife stamps.
This is the more formal second page which I use to allow me to include the loads of extra pictures I want.. because making the memory is what it's all about for me.
Why do I create what I do?
So that when I am older and greyer I can pore over the albums and show my kids and grandkids the days we had. I already enjoyed sharing an 18 year album I did for Lisa with her girls..even for me it was hard to look at the little girl doing crazy things and remember that it is the Mum and not one of the children I am looking at....
How does my writing / creative process work?...
I usually get a technique from our class leader and then try and match with my photos.. or develop an idea from that.rarely I use sketches but when I do I think I should so it more often as I like the effect!
I think when I get back into it I shall look back and find layouts I really liked and use the formats again.
Here are three people you should enjoy reading about ..(so far I am not sure if I can get them to join in as it seems several have already taken part in this BlogHopping)
here are links to my favourite reads anyway:
Jen.. who I met through 365+1 blog
Janice .. who I met at a JustScrapbooking course way back in 2008
Linda.. my original scrapbook Inspiration..
A lovely read Kathi, thank you for taking part. xx
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