Meet Matilda Mallstomper

On 3/27/04 3:20 PM, in article ,
"Seanette Blaylock" wrote:

Cheryl Isaak had some very interesting
things to say about Scrapbooking WAS Meet Matilda Mallstomper:

I'm with Cheryl -- I don't "get" the current scrapbooking trend.
Oh thank goodness - I have wondered if I was the only person not into it.
And stamping for that matter.

Not my thing either [although rubber stampers use stuff that also
works nicely on polymer clay :-)].

The clay I at least understand. I'm not interested for myself, but can see
the attraction.


Lots of "paper" crafts leave me cold - just me I guess.

Cheryl

Karen C - California wrote:
In article , Cheryl Isaak
writes:


I'm with Cheryl -- I don't "get" the current scrapbooking trend.


Oh thank goodness - I have wondered if I was the only person not into it.


Of course, this is the Martha-ization of our old-fashioned photo albums. Just
gluing photos to black paper isn't good enough any more when you can do it more
artistically (and more expensively). Problem is -- and my source admits it --
since you now have to cut and arrange and carefully re-write just the right
words till you get them error-free, it's no longer just taking a few minutes
when a film comes back from Fotomat to glue them in an album, but hours of
searching for just the right background paper and right stickers, so people are
getting even *further* behind in getting their photos in the album. (A venture
I gave up 20 years ago, when I realized how much room the albums took up versus
just keeping the photos in shoeboxes. In a 400-square-foot apartment, an extra
cubic foot here and there adds up real fast.)

Actually, I wouldn't blame Martha for this one. I actually find this
attitude a little condescending. Those of us who are addicted to a hobby
or craft should not have this attitude toward another craft. My mother
is an avid scrapbooker, as is my cousin. I do it, but not as avidly, of
course I don't have 2 children either. My mother admits that she is an
incredibly slow scrapbooker, but for her it's process. It is also the
one craft she loves. She finished an emboidery project the day she went
into labour with me and hasn't done any since. Before this past summer
it had been 18 years since she knitted anything. So for her, she comes
from a family that has loved photography for many many years, and my dad
had his own darkroom for a while. This was a natural extension of these
hobbies. And yes we go to crops, but then again there are stitch-a-longs
and stitching conventions, so I'm not seeing the difference. So, all of
us at some point have had to defend our love of needle, thread and
cloth, I don't think we should be condescending of those who love paper,
stickers and pictures. They are creating works of art and heirlooms,
just as we aspire too.

Rachel

S (Karen C - California) wrote in
:

Problem
is -- and my source admits it -- since you now have to cut and arrange
and carefully re-write just the right words till you get them
error-free, it's no longer just taking a few minutes when a film comes
back from Fotomat to glue them in an album, but hours of searching for
just the right background paper and right stickers, so people are
getting even *further* behind in getting their photos in the album.

Since you don't scrapbook, I find it odd that you feel you can comment on
the amount of time it takes to do so. That would be like someone who
doesn't knit dismissing that craft by saying why spend time knitting a
sweater when you can buy one in the store.

It doesn't take me hours to do a page and find the right words to journal.
Of course, my idea of an interesting scrapbook is more along the lines of
Divine Screts of the Ya-ya Sisterhood than Martha Stewart, but I understand
why other scrapbookers prefer the more formal method. Indeed, becuase I
enjoy my method of scrapbooking, I get the photos organized, notes written,
and memoribilia sorted more quickly because it's a much more enjoyable and
creative process than just slapping some glue on the back of snapshot and
sticking it in a photo album. I went to Seattle in June and New Orleans in
July, and had both scrapbooks done in by the end of the summer. I can say
as someone who has kept photo albums for years, my friends enjoy paging
through my scrapbooks more than they ever enjoyed paging through simple
photo albums.

And quite frankly, the pleasure I feel in watching a friend page through an
album about my father and through the photos, letters, awards, and notes
learn about a man he or she will never be able to meet makes it all worth
it.

I guess I just don't get why some people who admittedly spend hours on
needlework find it necessary to disparage the hours others spend on
scrapbooks.

K

Rachel Janzen wrote in
news:9Km9c.25876$li5.9130@pd7tw3no:

So, all of us at some point have had to defend
our love of needle, thread and cloth, I don't think we should be
condescending of those who love paper, stickers and pictures. They are
creating works of art and heirlooms, just as we aspire too.

Exactly. Thank you.

K

lula wrote in
:

K, you gave a wonderful explanation of scrapbooking!

Thank you! I've only been scrapbooking for a little over a year, but now I
wish I had had it in mind all my life. There are so many experiences I
would have liked to have documented in a Divine Secrets type of scrapbook.
I'll just have to do it from now on.

K

Cheryl Isaak had some very interesting
things to say about Scrapbooking WAS Meet Matilda Mallstomper:

I'm with Cheryl -- I don't "get" the current scrapbooking trend.
Oh thank goodness - I have wondered if I was the only person not into it.
And stamping for that matter.
Not my thing either [although rubber stampers use stuff that also
works nicely on polymer clay :-)].
The clay I at least understand. I'm not interested for myself, but can see
the attraction.

Try it sometime. :-)

Lots of "paper" crafts leave me cold - just me I guess.

I can understand why some people are interested in scrapbooking and
such, it just doesn't tweak my interests.

--
"Don't mess with major appliances unless you know what you are doing
(or unless your life insurance policy is up-to-date)." - John, RCFL

Collage Doesn`t have to compltely cover anything , you could make a
little collage in the middle of a painting or a big empty page ,,,
Collage is amking a 2 dimentional or very low relief pictorial
composition , by gluing paper , photos , fabrics etc... to a canvas or
a panel ....When you add 3 d objevts than it is called Assemblage.
mirjam
On 27 Mar 2004 17:51:46 GMT, S (Karen C -
California) wrote:

In article , Cheryl Isaak
writes:

Collage is a way to cover a box

Collage, as I understand it, is taking parts of things to completely cover an
*entire* surface. It's OK in collage to cover up half a photo with another
photo.

As it's been demonstrated to me, scrapbooking covers only *part* of the page
with photos, and fills some of the rest of the page with written memories. A
photo may be enhanced with a border or frame, but important parts aren't hidden
behind other photos.

I'm with Cheryl -- I don't "get" the current scrapbooking trend. Doesn't stop
me from buying their fabulous pre-printed papers and borders, to use for
writing letters, but my photos are in a box with the important information
written on the back of them. So often, in the background of old family photos,
was something of far more interest than the people in front -- an old car, a
house, etc. -- I could never bring myself to cut out just the face and discard
the historical details some future generation would find intriguing.

Maybe I'd be more into scrapbooking if there were a next generation to pass
them on to, but I'm the end of the line on this side of the ocean.


--
Finished 3/17/04 -- Elmo
WIP: Fireman's Prayer, Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday
Snowglobe

Paralegal - Writer - Editor - Researcher
http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

Lula , i do keep work copybooks of all ,my art projects ,,, and after
my solo was aproached by a museum curator that wanted to buy mine ,,,,
haven`t decided yet whether i wouldkeep or burn them later ,,,, mirjam

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 16:35:52 -0500, lula
wrote:

K, you gave a wonderful explanation of scrapbooking!

Most of us have a drawer or box filled with old photos and other odds
and ends of our lives waiting for something to be done, so it's a great
idea to layout these pieces creatively in an album.

Scrapbooking has its roots back to the 18th century. Women have been
keeping journal scrapbooks and albums through the ages, illustrated
with watercolor and bits of whatever could be saved of their daily
lives.

I'm attracted to "scrapbooking" but not in the memory sense of family
trees......my interests are similar to your vacation and garden
scrapbooks.
This is a wonderful craft and trend that looks to be staying popular for
a long while yet as more and more people are drawn to it.

Artist's scrapbook albums and journals are fascinating to look through.
A few of these beautiful watercolor journal / sketchbooks have been
published in the last few years.

I've been a journal keeper for most of my life......keeping journals on
the many aspects of my life, such as the various art & design
disciplines I work on.........as I posted earlier, wish I had kept a
"scrapbook" of my life through the years but never thought to
"illustrate" them.
I've only recently started to draw simple little sketches in my design
journals.......nothing "fancy" at least not yet.......
---
Lula
http://www.woolydream.com
Needlework Adventures

K K wrote:

As an avid scrapbooker, I do it because I like to share memories. I did a
scrapbook of my parents' 50th anniversary party that included the cards
from those who attended as well as their photos, with notes written by each
one to my parents. Many of these people have since died, and a scrapbook
is one way to gather all of these memories from many people to pass on to
my parents' granchildren. I also scrapbooked a lot of the memoribilia my
mother had of my father, who passed away two years ago (and this is an on-
going project...). Doing that I learned things about my Dad that I didn't
know, including the fact that he was one of the first people to take the
SATs. Again, gathering all this in one place, with the photos and the
written notes describing the importance of everything there,is a way to
pass these memories on. I don't cut the photos down to just someone's
face; seeing the car or the house or the landscape in the background puts
it all in context.

I also scrapbook my vacations, including photos, pamphlets, maps, coasters,
matchbooks, and anything else I can gather (the New Orleans book has beads
in it and the Key West and Hawaii books have shells and sand). When
friends come over for dinner or parties, they know where my scapbooks are
and look to see what's new. At least two couples have in part planned
their vacations around my scrapbooks! They found it inspiring to see
photos of Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas, for example, next to the
brochure of the ferry and the map of the fort. Seeing photos of black sand
beaches on pages laid out to look like a black sand beach, and photos of
Volcanos National Park with my journaled impressions of the experience
influenced another couple in their decision to go to Hawaii.

I scrapbook photos of my balcony garden every year, including the tags from
plants or the labels from seeds. That allows me to go back year after year
and either duplicate what I did before or try something new. I've
scrapbooked cross stitch projects, with the pattern in a sleeve on one page
and the photos of the front, back, and details on the opposite one. Since
I give away most of what I stitch, it's the only way I can keep records of
what I've done.

Not trying to make anyone a scrapbook convert, just trying to explain that
it's more than just cutting out faces and slapping them on some pretty
paper. It's yet another creative outlet for me.

K

Karen C - California wrote:

Of course, this is the Martha-ization of our old-fashioned photo albums. Just
gluing photos to black paper isn't good enough any more when you can do it more
artistically (and more expensively). Problem is -- and my source admits it --
since you now have to cut and arrange and carefully re-write just the right
words till you get them error-free, it's no longer just taking a few minutes
when a film comes back from Fotomat to glue them in an album, but hours of
searching for just the right background paper and right stickers, so people are
getting even *further* behind in getting their photos in the album. (A venture
I gave up 20 years ago, when I realized how much room the albums took up versus
just keeping the photos in shoeboxes. In a 400-square-foot apartment, an extra
cubic foot here and there adds up real fast.)

Yahbutttt, that's not my experience. I was reluctantly dragged to a
scrapbooking class and went really for the kaffeeklatch aspect, but what
I have found is that I like the creative aspect of it. I DO NOT,
however, spend hours looking for just the right anything. I can do a
two or three page layout from start to finish in a two hour crop. As a
result, the photos that were sitting in envelopes around my house
(because I wasn't even organized enough to get them written on and into
a box) are slowly but surely being assembled into an album.

Since I too am the end of my branch (and my siblings' kids are my
siblings' responsibility), I have no compunction about cutting photos
however suits me. And I write what I want on the page as I finish. I
don't strive to get it "just right." I certainly don't spend hours on
it. As a result, I am not further behind, I am catching up. And I get
a night out that I might not have otherwise made time for with people
that I might not have otherwise met but whose company I enjoy.

Elizabeth
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~living well is the best revenge~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate
and expand her sense of actual possibilities. --Adrienne Rich
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote:

Well Ericka , every one gets surprised by something else !!!

But of course.

No , i stil think learning how to put one`s memories together ??? is
weird ... commercial meomories ????

Who said anything about commercial memories? The fact
that there is a business that sells scrapbooking products and
offers "training" (of sorts--as I understand it their "classes"
are quite informal) through individual salespeople hardly means
that the people who *use* those products or take those classes
have "commercial memories."

What about Spontenous feelings , authencity ,,, ????? where have they
gone .

Buying products and learning techniques means that one
cannot have spontaneous feelings or authenticity? I don't
understand that.

Best wishes,
Ericka