The Beginning

It being October, which is sort of a scrapbooking quantum for me, I thought I would share with you how I started this hobby.

Innocently enough, I was invited to a friend's Creative Memories party, kind of a Tupperware of Scrapbooking event.  An excuse to hang out with some ladies involving food, drink, and crafts?  "Sure, I'll come--but don't expect me to buy anything.  I have no interest in scrapbooking.  Fine, I'll bring a few pictures to play with."

It was September of 2008.  The kids were already 9 and 11 years old, but I brought some of their baby pictures and made these little 7x7 pages.

 

Not bad for a first timer, eh?

It was pretty fun, too.  But, no, I still didn't want to scrap my life.  How daunting the task of catching up on all the years and milestones that had already passed??  With October right around the corner, however, it occurred to me that  I could do just a Halloween album.  It wouldn't be too hard to catch up, and then I was only committing to one page a year about a very fun, creative holiday.  Perfect! 

And so I made this title page:

I was very proud of my sketching inside the diecut letters to make them stand out a little. 
And look at those bat eyes!  I used bling!  Lol!

As my introduction to "the craft" had been in a 7x7 inch format, and envisioning my finished Halloween album sitting on our small coffee table for a good month of the year, I decided to go with the 8x8 inch size rather than the seemingly enormous 12x12.  (That would come later, though currently I am considering joining the 81/2 x 11 movement.)  And here are the first two pages, commemorating Jillian's first Halloween!

Yes, we really stuck her inside a pumpkin! 
And put another pumpkin's top on her head!

A little pumpkin to dot the "i"?  I was unstoppable!

It was a sad, sad day when she could no longer fit in that Winnie the Pooh outfit!  

Luckily, we had another kid!  Even if Jeremy, the Gentle Giant, wasn't able to squeeze into it very many times, it made it a little easier to retire the Winnie the Pooh on the second go around.

Oct. 1999

Well, thank you for stopping by and letting me share these little bits of the past with you!

A Safe Place

I don't know why I was starting to feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  My own "blog skin," that is.  Is there such a thing?  Blog skin?  There is probably a better term, but let me explain where I am coming from, and then maybe we can come up with the right terminology together.

Anyway, I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the direction my blogging was going on Unique Like Everyone Else.  I have been entertaining more crafty hobbies and outlets these days, and blogging about house, home, and family less.  When I do feel the urge to blog, I often want to share some of my finished projects, and the more I share those types of posts, the more I feel rather indulgent, like, "Hey!  Look at me!  I made this!  The kids?  Oh, they're fine.  Wanna see what else I made?"   So, instead I find myself keeping a lot of things private as I've chosen to document them with scrapbooking or art journaling, and who wants to see that?

Well,  maybe some people do!

I go to a lot of other crafty blogs, and  they are filled with post after post of creative yumminess.  I realized that I wanted a place like that, too.  A place where I could post as much artsy stuff as I wanted, and I wouldn't feel like I was boring anyone because they had, in fact, come to my new blog, My Peace of Paper, to see my art, not weed through it to get to the other stuff.   Don't worry, sweet grandparents and doting aunts and uncles:  I will still be chronicling the Flaherty family funnies, triumphs and tribulations over at ULEE (Unique Like Everybody Else) and will probably have some cross-links from here to there and vice versa.

Wow!  I feel much better now!  Thank you for coming to my Safe Place.  However, don't feel like you can't leave criticism in the comments.  That's not the safety I am seeking.  It's more the "Oh, boy.  There she goes with the art stuff again,"  insecurity I have over on the main blog.  That is what My Peace of Paper is here for--the art stuff.  That's where I find a lot of my peace, in being creative.

Thank you for visiting!
(I'll post about the layout this picture was cropped from tomorrow!  See ya' then!)