On Scrapbooking and Good Intentions Abandoned

When I told my daughters that I was going to make scrapbooks for the grandchildren, they laughed---with good reason. Both girls have albums with odds and ends of pictures and various awards taped to crispy, yellowing pages. Of course these scrapbooks were put together before the scrapbooking craze, and I didn't know anything about using acid-free paper and non-yellowing tape, cutting and pasting all sorts of designs on the pages, and stamping. When older daughter was little, even getting photographs was tough. We used film cameras, the film had to be sent off to a processing center someplace far away, and we just crossed our fingers and hoped that the film or pictures would not be lost in the mail. By the time I made second daughter's scrapbook, I had lost some enthusiasm for the project, and a few years ago she pointed out to me that I had labeled some of her school pictures with the wrong grade and age. I told her to scratch out the incorrect information and write in whatever was correct. She was moved...

After my first two grandchildren were born, my neighbor started working as a scrapbooking pusher representative. My older daughter's neighbor was a stamping pusher representative. The perfect storm!!! I bought all sorts of supplies, and put together a beautiful, complicated and elaborate scrapbook for grandchild #1. Then I made a somewhat less beautiful, complicated and elaborate scrapbook for grandchild # 2. Grandchild #3 is a little over eighteen months old. I am two years behind in scrapbooking, so imagine grandchild #3's scrapbook: Oh look! There's his birth announcement and a photo! Grandchild #4 is expected in November. That poor child will be lucky if I don't lose the birth announcement before I remember to buy the scrapbook!