Rediscovering the Art of Scrapbooks

My grandmother, of Irish decent, used to make scrapbooks. I had completely forgotten about scrapbooks until I discovered Francine’s blog, Callaloo Soup: A Little Bit of Everything (here). I originally went to the sight because of the word callaloo in the title. (Callaloo is my favourite vegetable besides pumpkin and red beet). Yet, I’ve stayed with the blog after the initial experience of nostalgia had diminished, because of Francine’s recounting of life as a foreigner in France and her creative passion as a scrapbook artist.

This Christmas I gave Nature Girl a slew of folders, binders, cutting knives, glitter stuff, material and paper scraps… a whole scrapbook starter kit as it were. It is amazing that children, and perhaps even adults, do not have to know anything in particular about the history or art of scrapbooks to actually do it. Maybe there is an intrinsic or instinctive form that some people tap into when they first start out. In the same way we tell story much in the same way Aristotle told.

Did any of you ever make scrapbooks? Or did your mothers or grandmothers?