Then and Now

I remember when I first started to scrapbook. It was when scrapbooking was just beginning to take hold across the country. At that time, I was doing 8 ½ X 11 pages…because everyone was doing 8 ½ x 11 pages. That is all there was. 12 x 12, 8 x 8, 6 x 6, none of them had come around yet. My pages were not what I would call creative, but then again, I didn’t have much to work with in the way of embellishments. It was just me and my decorative scissors! Sometimes I long for the simpler days of bygone years. It can be a little overwhelming combing through all of the products available now. Back then, printed paper was even fairly limited. Brads were something that you used in a craft project at school. And even then they were only the gold ones. Now I have a neatly organized container that holds over 60 different brads. Some have jewels in them, some are shaped like pumpkins. You get the jist. Don’t even get me started on eyelets and snaps! Then there are stickers. There were stickers around back then. But they were all the cutsie stickers. Bears that you could decorate; froophie hearts. They were more the kind of sticker you would use to decorate your Kiddy Care Kit. Now I have glitter alphabets, boarders, and different kinds of phrases. There is also chip board, rub-ons, velum, and on and on. Considering what I had to work with then, I guess my pages were ok. Now don’t get me wrong, I am by no means claiming that my scrapbooking today is all that and a slice of bread. But comparatively speaking, I see improvement. I hope you do also. Email me some of your before and after stories and photos. We would love to see how you have grown!