Hey there. Erin here, along with my oldest daughter, Emma. While looking for a photo for this post, I realized I don't have a recent picture of just me. The one I had been using was from two years ago. Which is probably why last time I hosted, I used (sometime awkward) pictures of me as a child. I guess it is time for a new picture, but until then, it's pictures of me with my kids.
When I signed up to host this week, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. None. Not even a sliver of an idea in the back of my mind. And when I don't have a cohesive week of ideas to post, I just go with whatever I can come up with that seems interesting. At least interesting to me. And hopefully to you.
I present to you my week of things that are sort of related, but not totally, so we're just going to go with it. Also known as a random week of posts. Which is pretty much how my mind works anyway.
Today: Scrapbooking your childhood with a twist
Tuesday: Getting your kids involved in more than just the story. (See, sort of related.)
Wednesday: Digging deep with your journaling.
Thursday: give.away.day.
Friday: Creating outside your box.
Saturday: Right now - a random list of ideas, things, and uselessfull stuff.
When I was thinking about topics for this week, I kept coming back to a stack of childhood pictures I have. Some of them have gone in to a mini-album, but there’s a lot more that I need to do something with. I started looking through them, I realized how many pictures are similar to ones I have of my children either in pose, event, or memory. The one that stuck out the most was of me and my childhood friend, Lynette. We were inseparable. She lived behind me and we grew up like sisters. My daughter Emma has two friends who live near us, one across the street and one a street behind us. Which led me to this page:
8.5 x 11| materialscardstock (Paper Company) + patterned paper (Basic Grey) + flair (American Crafts) + letter stickers (American Crafts) + border punch (EK Success) + font (Calibril)
I love this page; it brought back so many memories while working on it. I had never before thought of my friendship with Lynette in comparison to Emma's friendships. I look forward to seeing how Emma's friendships with Caroline and Bree develop as they get older. I fully intend to have the same open-door policy my mom had - the girls will be welcome here any time.
Francine created a layout using a photo of her son to compare their childhoods.
I got the idea for this page as we were walking back home from the park one day and had to stop to let the tram pass. It struck me just how much Kieran's childhood is different from mine! The title Citadin is French for city-dweller.
The journaling is in the envelope and says: Walking home with you from the park one day we had to stop to let a tram pass, and it struck me how very different our childhoods are. I played at the beach, you play at the park. I took the car or walked everywhere, you rarely take the car, but use the metro and tram. I ran around outside in the garden, and you have a narrow balcony. I was surrounded by trees and grass and blue sky, and you are surrounded by buildings and streets and a grey hazy sky. Sometimes I wonder if we are doing you a huge disservice, but when I see how happy and joyful you are anyway, I remind myself that this is just a different way of living, and I make the effort to ensure that you do see tress and grass and blue sky (and even the beach!), whenever possible.
So for today, I challenge you to look at your childhood photos in a different light. What similarities or differences are there between your childhood and your children's? Think friends, where you lived, your activites, school, pets, how you spent vacations, personalities. The possibilities are endless. Scrapbooking your childhood photos this way is a win-win-win: you get your childhood photos scrapped, photos of your children scrapped, and you might discover something you have in common with your child that you hadn’t thought of yet.
I'd love to see any pages you create this week in our Flickr gallery!
