WeScrap

Residents called into action for All-America competition

By Kathleen Quilligan

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Porter-Ross: Wants people to create scrapbook pages

While the city and county wrote the application that make Fort Wayne and Allen County a finalist in the All-America City competition, residents’ help is needed to actually win the award.

Mayor’s Area Advocate Denise Porter-Ross said that on each Friday through June 8 she will announce ways city and county residents can help win the award that is given to 10 of the competition’s 21 finalists.

The city previously has received the award in 1954, 1982 and 1998, but this is the first time the city and county have collaborated on the award. To be named an All-America city, a community must have active citizen involvement, effective and efficient government, and community vision and pride.

Porter-Ross said her first announcement asked residents to create scrapbook pages of their families, churches and community groups to show what the area is really like.

“I know scrapbooking is a big phenomenon in this community,” said Porter-Ross, who is still getting pictures from residents who attended the Blue Friday rally she conducted in February in support of the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl.

The scrapbook pages may be dropped off at any area Wal-Mart store.

Porter-Ross said she also encourages those who have been around for the previous award-winning years to journal about their memories. For example, she said babies who were born the week the award was announced in 1998 were given a certificate that named them “All-America City babies.”

“They must be in baby books someplace,” Porter-Ross said.

The push for resident involvement comes as a last step in the finalist process that measures city participation and shows support for the award, Porter-Ross said.

“People complain and bemoan some things, but we have a lot of great things going for us and a lot of community involvement,” Porter-Ross said. “People should feel good about where they live.”

"Expanding the passion..."

What I did to expand the passion...

By NSA Member Jan #4152

In September 2006, I went looking for other scrapbooking friends. I started an online/local group here in my hometown, the Spartanburg Scrapper and Stampers. I knew that I wanted to have a group in which new and seasoned scrappers would enjoy participating and one where they would look forward to our next crop or event. I also knew that I wanted to make our group special, not only expanding the passion, but giving back to our community as well. With the help of some wonderful ladies and especially Robin Novak our assistant organizer, we managed to raise over $900 for our local Safe Homes with our Scrapping From The Heart Charity Crop. For the first time ever attempting anything like this, we were so pleased with the results. With that charity event, we gained several new members who are also interested in growing our group and sharing with others our passion for scrapping. We plan another Scrapping From The Heart Charity Crop in October on top of other events coming up for the spring and summer. Through this group of ladies passionate for scrapping, we're spreading the word, doing our best to let everyone know the joy of scrapping, the joy of friendship and fellowship, and the joy of preserving memories.

Piecing Together The Past

Posted 2007-03-26

Scrapbookers Start Club To Preserve Family Memories

By Kelly Jasper

TIMBERVILLE "I’m finally getting them into an album," Saunders said, laughing as she explained her wedding was eight years ago. It’s an all too familiar story, said Saunders, 55, of Paw Paw, W.Va. "Life just goes by fast sometimes." Photos piled up, she explained, and slipped to the back of her mind. Until, that is, she started scrapbooking. Saunders and her daughter, Michelle Foltz, embraced the new craft together about four years ago. The two took their passion public when Foltz decided the area needed its own scrapbooking club. She signed up on a popular networking site, Meetup.com, three months ago and is now meeting with a group every month in Timberville. Collective Cropping Through Meetup.com, a dozen members joined and several meet every month for hours-long scrapbooking sessions, said Foltz, 36, of Timberville. "It goes by really fast," said Foltz, who made four pages for her scrapbook during their four-hour meeting on Sunday. It was the group’s third meeting so far. They plan to meet the fourth Sunday of every month in a meeting room of the Plains District Community Center. It’s a spacious place, with room to fan out stockpiles of supplies, without worrying about the roaming hands of little ones, Foltz said. "When you have children, you can’t leave it out at home," Foltz said, pointing to her collection of funky scissors, inkpads and a paper cutter. That’s part of why she started the group earlier this year. "It’s a way to get out of the house and meet people," Foltz said. "It’s just more fun to do together." Member Olivia Conley agreed. While she’s been scrapbooking for about five years, "because of the group, I’ve gotten into it," said Conley, 54, of Dayton. But the benefits of collective scrapping hardly stop there, they said. Advice For Newbies "One of the biggest advantages is sharing tools," Foltz said. "Like today, I learned to emboss for the first time," borrowing the heating gun of veteran scrapbooker Anne See, a Broadway resident. Sharing is just perfect for "newbies" who want to try the craft out before committing, Foltz added. "It can get very expensive, but a lot of discount stores are starting to sell supplies," Foltz said. Emma Norton, of Harrisonburg, is new to the craft, but she’s already learned that resourcefulness can cut costs. "You can use trash, anything, if you’re creative enough," she said. Inspiring each other’s creativity is another reason group members said they didn’t want to just scrap from home. "You just walk around and look at their stuff," Saunders said. And they often do, comparing notes, techniques and supplies, as well as the memories behind the photos they so creatively want to preserve. That desire to preserve the past drives scrapbookers like Foltz. "It’s for my kids," she said. "I want something they can have and look back on." Saunders says most people have a similar desire — it’s why they keep shoeboxes of photos in the first place. But now, more than ever, scrapbooking is made more accessible with so many resources, and the support of groups like this one, she said. "Anybody can do it," Saunders said. "You don’t even know how creative you are until you get started." Jenny Foltz, of Timberville, who crafted Halloween-themed pages on Sunday, agreed. "It’s for the artist who can’t draw or paint," she said as she packed up bags of supplies. Their four hours went by quick, Foltz said. But, "there are always more photos to take." They’ll be back next month, she said, armed with another shoebox of photos to preserve. — Maria Saunders smiled as she thumbed through wedding photos, pausing to glue her favorites to a sheet of dark crimson paper.

ScrapbookING, yes!

Today...this article warns us that we --as a market/industry-- have gone overboard and scrapbooking is now alienating consumers. Perception has crossed from overwhelming to down-right frightening:

Scrapbooking is everywhere...There is even a television show about it, which I watched one time simply out of sheer disbelief.

Upon leaving the store, I had the urge to down a whiskey to counterbalance the act of purchasing scrapbooking supplies on a Friday night. But since I don't drink whiskey, I settled for a raspberry martini, which took the edge right off my uncomfortable foray into the world of scrapbooking.

It seems my old method of sitting down biannually with five photo albums and a shoe box full of pictures no longer cuts it.

...scrapbooking highlights my inadequacies in the craft department, takes too long, and makes my fingers and my neck ache.

It makes me sad, because there is only one rule in scrapbooking: If you're having fun, then you're doing it right. The author of the article was not having fun. And I don't know who looses more: that we loose a customer, or that she looses confidence in her capacity to creatively preserve her memories.

Expanding the passion is not about getting excited over the latest and greatest. It's about finding and embracing a way to integrate memory preservation into our lifestyle so we become more passionate about our life.

The Sisterhood of Scrapbooking by Tasra

Editor's Note: NSA Member and author Tasra Dawson shares her thoughts on the 'sisterhood of scrapbooking' - how scrapbooking goes beyond the cutting, pasting, and writing.

Girl Time. (n) A bonding ritual essential to females and indescribable to males, characterized by unmitigated chatter, sudden bursts of laughter, endless supplies of tissues, and chocolate.

—Girl Time, Laura Jensen Walker

 

Scrapbooking is how I’ve made some of my closest friends. In fact, my friend Chrissy is an independent consultant and was the first person to invite me to a crop at her home. Nervous and scared, I took my small bag of supplies and decided to be brave and attend. I felt nervous, shy, and embarrassed by my limited supplies, but I went anyway. I had no way of knowing that she would become one of my closest friends and supporters. We often stayed up well past midnight scrappin’ our photos and talking about our lives, marriages, kids, and dreams. Our friendship was the foundation for our families to meet and become close friends. We happened to have kids the same age and in the same grade, which worked out nicely because they could keep each other entertained while we talked. That was nearly five years ago.

When I moved two hours north of my hometown earlier this year, I remembered the lessons from my friendship with Chrissy. Scrapbooking became the key to making friends in my new home. I found a few local scrapbook stores and again packed up my supplies and headed off into the unknown. I didn’t know anyone, hadn’t even visited the stores, but knew that I would find friendly faces and women with a common bond: our love for scrapbooking. I still attend a bi-weekly crop at one of the local stores and look forward to it every time. It’s a 3-for-1: girl time, me time and craft time. We bond over hot mochas, See’s dark chocolate, and an ever expanding scrap table. It doesn’t get much better than that.

A close second for me is visiting and participating in online scrapbook forums and message boards. Every time I skim through posts in online scrapbook forums, I’m humbled by the sincere and heartfelt relationships that I witness and experience. Women from all walks of life and in varying social classes, life stages and even different races are unified and brought together by our love for scrapbooking. Who knew that something as simple as an album, some photos and a little bit of embellishment, could create something as powerful as the sisterhood of scrappers.

Ironically, I find that sometimes I spend more time “chatting” and posting in forums than I do actually creating pages and completing layouts. I’ve met many scrappers who experience the same phenomenon. The exciting thing for me is that I have been able to build friendships with women whom I might never meet in person: a friend in Norway who tells me about my Norwegian roots, a designer in Paris who allows me to live vicariously through her, a mother in the Midwest who keeps me constantly laughing. These friendships have saved marriages, inspired change, and even helped get layouts and stories published. I am a better person because of the friends I have made.

One thing that saddens me is when I hear about women missing out on these opportunities because of fear. Sometimes it’s insecurity about our ability or talent as a scrapper, sometimes it’s shyness when meeting new people or being in new situations. Even comparison and competition can get in the way of great friendships. In my humble opinion, I think that whatever it takes to move past these fears, just do it. It is well worth the effort.

There is something so intimate and personal about the friendships that form through scrapbooking. People invite me to look through their life stories as they share the work they have done in their scrapbooks. They inspire me to capture my family’s life and look at it with a new perspective.

One of my personal goals is to make time for friendships, girlfriends, and sisters. I sincerely believe that girlfriends are necessities, not luxuries, and it is through my girlfriends that I grow and learn. It’s easy to get bogged down with the busyness of life and forget what’s really important—people. Scrapbooking brings that back into focus for me. Once I joined the sisterhood of scrappers, my life has never been the same.

This is How it All Began by Lisa Sanford

Editor's Note: Ms. Sanford is an accomplished scrapbooker, author, designer and advocate within the scrapbooking industry, particularly in reference to diversity-focused issues. You can learn more about her at her blog, ethnicscrapbooking.typepad.com.

I created my first school days scrapbook in 2nd grade and the next project was the challenge of scrapbooking over 2,000 photographs taken in Africa.  When I sat down to scrapbook my sister’s first trip to the “motherland” and I was faced with the fact that there were very, VERY, few ethnic products on the market.  I was forced to paper-piece items together to embellish my layouts.

I quickly came to find out that many other African-American scrapbookers felt my pain and I began teaching other scrappers how to create their own designs too.  Thank goodness a couple of manufacturers heard my cries and produced a smidgen of multi-cultural products.  So instead of beating my head against every magazine and manufacturers door for more ethnic products, I’ve set my sights on introducing minority communities to the world of scrapbooking and preserving their family memories.  Most recently, I’ve expanded my creating and teaching to including cultural flair in all types of paper craft projects. I think everyone can be inspired to celebrate cultural diversity, the good of life, family and community.  Anyone can add cultural flair to scrapbook projects regardless of their race, ethnicity, or nationality. 

After teaching scrapbooking nationwide, I’ve come to the realization that most scrapbookers are like me…they have tons of “event” photographs…they have little time to devote to scrapbooking …and they want their pages to be personalized.  I’m just looking for a way to move my photographs from the shoebox (or computer) to an album.  I look in magazines and idea books to visualize my own photos on the layouts. 

Although my focus is to constantly teach my children about our own culture and to appreciate the differences of other cultures. I noticed that many scrapbookers already add cultural flair to their pages just by reflecting their own lifestyles, but it would be nice if there were cultural specific products or ideas.  I believe multi-cultural products are appropriate year round and survive any “fashion trend” that comes along, because it’s the cultural aspect of our lives that survives for generations.

I haven’t been to one person’s home where I haven’t seen an artifact, textile, food or piece of art that wasn’t reflective of their ethnicity or of their travel’s abroad.  Ethnic culture is a part of everyone’s life on a daily basis and I don’t see why any company wouldn’t want to be a part of the consistent sales that culturally inspired products could eventually bring.

Lisa's article examines how she 'shares the passion' of scrapbooking within her community.  Have you found a way to share your passion? Do you share the author's thoughts about the need for more culturally-representative products to use in your scrapbooks? We welcome your comments!