scrapbooking explained

Some people don't really understand scrapbooking - they think it is still about putting cute stickers around some birthday party pictures. Scrapbooking is so not that. Scrapbookers are Life Artists, combining words and photos into a meaningful story of who we are at that moment in time. Thank you to Ali Edwards and Stacy Julian for making this concept so clear.

Journalling on the page reads
"Scrapbooking is a way of blessing myself and the people I love. It is meditative. I concentrate on the person in the photograph and really think about him or her. I recall the moment and give my loving attention to that person, that memory. I believe now that this is a way of blessing each one, and is also freeing for me, for the memories and feelings that emerge as I work. Once I have placed the photos on the page, I try and make it beautiful - to honour the person, the moment, with something lovely around it, something that I have made that came from my creative soul. Creating something that is lovely nurtures my creativity, nurtures my relationship with the person in the photo. And lately I have been working on photos of me - it seems I have also been nurturing my relationship with myself."

happy spring

"If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder
he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it"
- Rachel Carson

One of my favourite pages. Inspired by a Fontwerks layout. Love the stamps and the flowers. Jonah - he was 11 - took the photo summer before last in an empty lot down the street where poppies and daisies had seeded themselves.

From my garden, a camellia

I remember spending many hours wandering the fields behind our place when I was growing up. Even then, I could feel my senses expand and revel in being out-of-doors. I needed that time to wander and observe, to inhale, to bend down low and find something exquisite growing in that dry landscape, amid the cactus and the sand and the craggy sage. But if it rained! The sage became fragrant and the earth, too. My soul is connected to land, to earth, and when I don't remember to spend time outside I am depleted. I am so glad it is spring - I am hungry for time outdoors.