Scrap Mania

Many years ago I was a scrapbooker.  I spent many hours creating scrapbook pages and had scrapbook parties with my sisters in Utah. I made huge messes, and had a great time creating.

But I haven't really scrapbooked for over six years - since before we moved to Washington.  Now memory documentation comes in the form of our blog books and other digital photo books I print out each year (one for each kid every year and one for every family vacation.)  It's been a long time since I have made a big mess with paper and glue.

Until now.  I just spent A LOT of hours working on scrapbooks for Joseph's first grade class. I estimate it took me at least 25 hours - and that was me working in "speed scrapper" mode, with pretty simple pages.  And I was only in charge of two months - October and January!

It just so happens that there is a set of twins in Joseph's class with a super sweet and over the top scrapbooking Grandma.  Let's called her Grandma Ruby (her name has been changed for her protection).   Grandma Ruby volunteered to head up the class scrapbook for the year.  She doesn't even live in the state, but coordinated it all through her frequent visits to WA and through email.

Last year I had helped with the class "scrapbook" for Joseph's kindergarten class. I was in charge of one page with two pictures on each page for a total of 14 kids.  It was all done it about two hours.  I thought it was fun to dabble in scrapbooking again, so I signed up to help again this year.  I definitely didn't realize what I was getting into.

Grandma Ruby bought big three ring binders for each of the 26 kids and started working on the books in August, before school started.  She met with all of us in October to show us her progress and what she hoped we would do also.  She had created 27 pages per kid for the month of September. I am not kidding. After I picked my jaw up off the floor and talked to the teacher and what she envisioned, I pared down the expectation to something kind of sort of manageable - a two page picture spread plus three pages of artwork per kid per month.

Now, I know that I never received a "class scrapbook" in elementary school, and none of my other kids has ever had such a thing. I thought the simple Kindergarten scrapbook last year was a nice extra - twelve pages total with one page per month.  I certainly never expected and do not expect that my children receive an entire scrapbook of their year when they finish a grade in school. I mean, isn't that the parent's job?  Just because most of us don't actually get around to putting the artwork into a binder, does that mean that some scrapper should do it for us?

I admit that I kind of liked the chance to scrap again. I like the creative process and the instant gratification of a finished project. But, when I looked at the pile of pages I finished (about 270), I selfishly wished that I had spent all that time on our own neglected scrapbooks. (Joseph will someday realize that all his siblings have awesome "baby" scrapbooks and he has a total of five pages).

This is what our bedroom looked like for the last two weeks. While scrapping I caught up on at least 40 episodes of House Hunters.

Next year, will I be signing up to be scrapbook helper?  I don't think so. But stay tuned.