Mood:  on fire

Just for fun, I'm going to start off with my VERY FIRST LAYOUT EVER, and the story of how I started scrapbooking.

In the Fall of 1998, I was raising two youngs boys, ages 2 and 9, who were both real handfuls. I was depressed, and badly in need of a creative outlet. I had seen some scrapbook pages that a friend of mine had done, but didn't really think it was my thing. Then, in the mail one day I got an offer from a mail-order scrapbook club, Memories in the Making, by Leisure Arts. The layouts in the brochure looked really cool and the introductory offer was pretty good, so I decided to send away for it.

While I was waiting for my package to come, I spent hours poring over the brochure, imagining all the beautiful things I could create. I guess I had suddenly decided that maybe scrapbooking was my thing after all, and I could hardly wait.

And finally, one day, it came. I opened the box and looked at all the beautiful papers and stickers and the album, then I went and dug up some extra prints we had of Aaron's 2nd birthday that year (even at that early stage I knew better than to cut up original prints) and made my very first layout.

When it was done, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I couldn't believe I had made something THAT COOL. No matter how many layouts I make, no matter how my style evolves, no matter how out of style the goofy cropping and random stickers are, I will never forget that feeling of, "Oh wow, I actually made that myself!!"

I think it was pretty clever, using a magnet number to trace the "2" on my very first layout. The balloon stickers were from the original kit, but the Thomas the Tank Engine stickers were a later addition, after Hallmark began making acid-free versions of their licensed stickers. The confetti stickers were also a later addition, from a goofy sheet of early Provo Craft birthday clown stickers. 

Maybe not the best first layout anyone has ever done, and it reflects a lot of the things that were done in the primitive days of scrapbooking that we cringe at now. But I will never be embarrassed by this layout, or want to hide it or take it apart, because of what it means to me.