Ok, before we go any further, I'm going to post an example of what I mean when I say I want to re-do a bunch of these old pictures of Aaron. I originally scrapbooked his baby photos when I was first starting out, and while I have no intention of getting rid of the old layouts (they're part of my own history), they are definitely lacking in some areas. First of all, I didn't scrapbook all the pictures we took, mainly because I didn't have extra prints of all of them and even back then I knew better than to crop an original print. Getting reprints was a pain back in the days of using negatives. Also, I guess some of them I didn't think were good enough, while now with digital photo editing photos can be zoomed, enlarged, cropped and spiffed up into acceptibility or even better. Another problem is that I would take these little 3x5 inch prints and crop them within an inch of their lives, often in weird shapes, rendering them even tinier. Then I would combine a lot of them on a page with some lame and random theme and some unenlightening captions. Here's what I mean:

Now, this is a particularly egregious example. But you get the idea. I really felt like I wanted to focus more closely on the relatively few photos we took of Aaron (at least as compared to Jesse when he was a baby) and give them more attentive and appropriate treatment. Not to replace these old layouts, but to supplement them, fill in the missing pieces and tell the story more completely (and with a little more style).

Patterned paper: you don't seriously want to know, do you? Anyway, it's either Paper Pizzazz by Hot Off the Press, or from the old Memories in the Making kits I used to get, which haven't been available in years. 

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.