Mortaine’s Blog

OK, I joined a scrapbooking class (please don’t laugh at me, I don’t know why I did it).

For our first in-class project on the first day, we took photos and did a sample scrapbook page.

The photos I chose were all of my grandmother, who is 93. (awwww!)

For our homework, we were told to bring in our photos for the scrapbook we want to create. I bought my book, a pretty green book with a green and pink design on the cover.

Thing is, the instructor said to bring in 200-300 pictures and memorabilia.

Of my grandma, not counting duplicates, I have about 12 photos and half a dozen letters. I have more letters somewhere, but they’re lost in the boxes– I can’t find them.

Here are possible other subjects:

My wedding– I’ve got a ton of wedding and honeymoon and anniversary trip photos I could scrapbook into a book for John and me. It doesn’t really go with the scrapbook I bought, but so what? I can always put them into a different book and use this one for another subject later.

My nephew. I easily have 200 photos of Austin. I have about half that of Lizzie. The scrapbook in question is a little girlish, but it’s the shade of green of peridots, which is Austin’s birthstone (mine too).

My family in general. Again, 200 photos of Austin. About 20 of everyone else.

My friends. I have probably 50 pictures of my friends, not counting those from the marathon. I might be able to get people to mail me pictures, but not in time for Wednesday. I also have pictures of people who I wasn’t even really friends with.

Andy– I think I’ve saved every card and letter Andy has sent me since before we broke up (in… what? 1994?). I have no idea why I save them. Perhaps because ours is the only relationship I’ve ever ended peacefully? Perhaps because we’re still good friends and I love him dearly? I don’t know. All I know is I have more photos of him than I do of any of my other relatives. Again, the book I bought is a tad girlish for him.

Nature. This actually isn’t a bad category for me– I have a lot of nature photos that I’ve taken– they come out all right for me. Aside from being pretty, however, all I would be able to write or say about them, in the “journal” section of the bookmaking process, is “um, tulips from my front yard” or “a photograph of the moon.” OR, I could search out poems relating to nature, or which remind me of the photos or something…. Hm. Something to think of. As a bonus, the nature photos would go very nicely with the kaleidoscope scrapbook. On the other hand, would anyone ever actually want to read a big heavy book of poetry that isn’t even mine?

I have discovered that I have exactly TWO photos of my dad. I have ONE photo of each of my grandfathers, and one of my maternal grandmother.

I could ask my dad and sister to mail pictures of my grandmother to me, but again, they probably wouldn’t arrive before Wednesday.

I can probably come up with 200 pictures of various pets of myself and my friends. This would basically be a scrapbook of animals in various poses.

I can also print out any of the photos on my online photo album.

My sister has about half of my photograph collection.

This was a lot easier when I focused on my rejection slips and my cat.

Any suggestions?