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In The Pits with
Dora Phillips
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When Assistant
Editor Michelle decided to feature a
different staff member each month of this
year's magazine, I was all for it. We
have such talented ladies on staff and I
love to showcase them. Then, I looked
at the list and realized that she put me
first. Eeek!
It is not like I
would have trouble chattering on -- to know me
and love me is to realize I never stop
talking -- but finding something new to share
would be tough. And then there was the
scrap assignment: several new pages,
with one about me, during the
pre-Christmas/give final exams rush.
Double eeek!
Being a logical
sort, I decided to figure out my best
scrapping process first. I know it
seems like I should have already known that,
but the truth is that I scrap a variety of
ways. Sometimes, I need to showcase a
company's products so I start with their
yummy goodies. Other times, I am
pushing myself to try something new with an
online challenge. Often, I am creating
gifts and taking the recipient's style into
the design process. Scrapping just for
me is something I do more rarely than I like
to admit, but is now a major item on my New
Year resolution list.
I started my journey by
sitting down with a couple of my scrapbooks and
flipping through them quickly. Whenever I came
to a page that I wanted to stop and admire, I put a
little sticky flag on the page and kept going.
When I completed the books, I went back to the
flagged pages for a closer look. Listing all
of the items they had in common, I quickly found my
favorite self style: solid backgrounds, lots
of journaling, multiple pictures, hybrid, and
straight lines. And my favorite items:
bling, clear items, chipboard, strip journaling, and
buttons. I was most surprised by the multiple
photos since I would have insisted that I was a one
page, one photo kind of girl. Who knew?
Looking at these pages, I
could remember making them and they all had one item
in common: they started with the story.
For a couple of the pages, I had to go and take
special photos in order to finish the layout that I
started. It makes sense since I would
definitely describe myself as a storyteller.
To test this process theory,
I cleared my desk and grabbed my sketch notebook.
And for the next couple of days, I told some
stories. I giggled as I documented my son's
love for food on a stick. I smiled as I
discovered my daughter is a mix of girly and tomboy.
I rolled my eyes at my husband while making secret
little notes. As I wrote the stories, I would
flip the notebook open and do a couple of quick
sketches.
This is a picture of my
notebook as I worked on my me layout. I
started the journaling between classes. I was
reviewing Shakespeare with my college freshmen for
their final and the word aside caught in my head.
I decided to describe myself, but with asides.
It only took me 15 minutes to jot down the words I
thought I wanted, though you can see by the
scribbles they changed a bit later.
Later, I had my 6-year-old son (and
budding photographer) take a few pictures of me and
headed to the computer to type up my words. It
is a pretty simple page, but it really is totally
me!
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Me (Shakespearean Style)
by Dora Phillips. Supplies: Paper:
BasicGrey, Chipboard: Cosmo Cricket, Brads:
Making Memories, Font: Times New Roman.
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Journaling:
Today I am (well, not just
today):
38 years old
(how did that happen?).
Mom of 2 and
wife of 1 (which is much better than the
reverse).
A college
professor (totally love that job).
Drinking a
large coke (ok, so its my 2nd today--what's
your point?).
Wearing black
(my winter uniform of jeans and a black
turtleneck).
Writing in red
(cause its my favorite color).
Organized, but
not neat (Neat is a friend of Clean, not a
friend of mine).
Listening to
Taylor Swift (cause she rocks!)
Scrapbooking
(so I am happy).
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Over the next week, I stayed
true to my process. I told stories and then I
scrapped them. Sometimes I had photos that
would work and other times I badgered my kids into
letting me take the pictures I needed to show
illustrate the stories in my notebook. And I
discovered 2 amazing things during this experiment.
Scrapping by this process is (1) faster for me and
(2) I love the pages.
Give it a try and see if you
can discover your preferred process. It is
totally worth it. And, please enjoy a peek on
the next page at a few more of my layouts.
I am proud to be a simple
storyteller. That's my style.
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© ScrapStreet, 2008
All Rights Reserved
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