My Best Friend and the light of my life....her daughter

Scrapbooking... Why We Start and Why We Get Hooked.

I began Scrapbooking as we know it today by pure accident.  One of my closest friends called me and invited me to a party.  She told me to bring 5 pictures and I could make a scrapbook page.  I decided I didn't have time to sit at a party and make anything.  I went to the party with the intent to make a small purchase (I wanted to support my friend) and leave.  As it happens, more than 3 hours and $450.00 later I left the party with a new hobby that has now lasted for more than 10 years.

On my drive home I remember panicking at the amount of money I had just spent on something I knew very little about.  The panic subsided by the time I had removed the packaging from my new purchases and the desire to tell the story of every picture laying in a box, photo album, or a drawer became paramount to my very existence.

As I went through my pictures I felt the rush of ideas coming from things I had seen and heard at my first scrapbooking party.  I knew at that very moment why I would become a Scrapbooker.

I realized not only should the stories of our lives be told and thus preserved but the pictures themselves should be preserved.  I was on a mission.

I came to another realization shortly after that first night.  I was driving to work when suddenly all I could think of was getting home and scrapbooking.  That's when I knew I was HOOKED.

I spent every spare moment scrapbooking, reading about scrapbooking, talking to friends about scrapbooking, or showing everyone my latest pages.  Then something happened....

I knew I was having fun with my new hobby and that was great. However, my Nanny (maternal grandmother) really put scrapbooking into perspective for me.  I was proudly showing her the pages of my new hobby.  When she finished looking at the few pages she said to me, "Honey, you've become the family historian." Right then and there it became my mission to tell every story of my family through scrapbooking.

The following is the first page of my first scrapbook, I think it says it all:

This scrapbook is a piece by piece documentation of lifetimes.  Each piece has been studied, cut, enhanced, and glued with tender loving care.

Each page represents a memory.  Wonderful memories.  Within these pages you'll find fun, laughter, facts, my humor, and yes even a few pages that are sad but had to be told.

Each page is a story.  Each picture has its own story.  I suppose I have become the family historian.  I believe it is important to never forget the past as it will hopefully remind us to be Thankful for the present and to look ever forward to the future.  Scrapbooking has become therapy for me.  When I sit down surrounded by pictures of friends and family I seem to EXHALE.  I always have a good laugh or cry remembering each person and situation. 

I'm sure that everyone preserved in these pages will not appreciate the light with which they have been shown or my humor for that matter.  However, if they continue to turn the pages, when the scrapbook closes, I promise there will be a smile on every face.

For me this scrapbook is just like one of my Nanny's quilts - When I am cold or just need comforting I will pull it out and it will wrap me in the warmth of its pages and memories for a lifetime.

You're now wondering why I would write about scrapbooking in a guide on ebay?  Here's the short answer.......If it's scrapbooking.....you can get it on ebay.  I found this out again by pure accident.  One of my scrapbooking friends had completed a page with the use of an embellishment I had not seen in our local scrap store.  She told me she bought it on ebay.  The rest is history....my first purchase on ebay was a pack of scrapbooking paper. What an exciting way to accumalate scrapbooking products.  I had my very own vast store at my disposal 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  I would bid, wait , bid again, and then whoop and holler when I was the winning bidder.  When my latest purchase would arrive I acted like a kid at Christmas.  I have never recieved a purchase that wasn't exactly as described and most of the time better than described.

Get your pictures out of those photo albums, tell the stories, and most importantly go to ebay....you will find the most fantastic bargains on everything you could ever want for your new found hobby.

If you are a Scrapbooker, you know in a very short time scrapbooking becomes more than a hobby....it becomes a way of life.

These are two pages I made with my first ebay purchase.  Pictures show my friend (the one who invited me to my first scrapbooking party) and I having "our Scrappy Birthday".  Our birthdays are exactly 1 week apart.  We had our party at our local Scrapbooking store.  We a cake in the shape of a scrapbook.  It was a wonderful evening.