Scrapbook Mentors

After a beautiful summer, with lots of extreme yard, garden and house projects, I find myself looking forward to the cooler and less hectic days of fall. Don't get me wrong, I love the supposed "relaxed" schedule of summer. Unfortunately, I am the sort of person who puts off, for vacation time, all the big projects that you can not seem to get around to when you are working. Summer ends up being more work and less play than you expected. Fall then, becomes your summer. The peas are languishing on the vine (cooked by all of the incessant heat that we have received this month), the grass is growing so slowly that you don't spend as much time on the mower as you used to and a blind eye is turned towards the flower pots that need to be dead headed and trimmed up (as well as watered) - life slows down in a delicious way and you quit stressing about things that need to be done. The gradual slow down is peaceful and calming - one season is coming to a close and another opens up with lots of possibilities.

The kitchen is not the hot house that is has been for months. You could actually turn on the oven, if you wanted to. News stand magazines are vibrant with fall colors - apple pies, fall deserts, roasts - things that you would never contemplate when it is 30 degrees outside. Halloween magazines are rich with decorating ideas, scrapbook magazines are dripping with fall leaves, bats and pumpkins. Everywhere you look, you are surrounded by color. That is the essence of fall!

I am exactly, perfectly, and wonderfully where I want to be in my scrapbooks. Exactly one year behind. The most perfect place to be. My next set of photos was taken precisely one fall ago, a end of the season camping trip to Creston, to buy apples, onions and the very last of the freestone peaches. The fact that I can look out the window and see inspiration, purchase the latest autumn themed papers and feel the cooler air of fall has really made me want to camp out at my scrapbook table and create.

The other thing that has me itching to scrapbook is the fact that when I cleaned my scrapbook room this summer, I came across a long lost book that I treasure. Stacey Julian's "The Big Picture". A book that I think every scrapbooker should be forced to re-read every year. Her warm approach to both the craft and the journaling of her pages is the best inspiration that one could possibly get. It is a must read - from cover to cover. While I do not scrapbook in her style, or in the way that she plans her albums, I take so much away from that book every time that I read it, I continue to re-read and re-read it. Over and over. I don't even know if it is still in print, if it is long gone, I feel so sorry for people who have not had the good fortune to lose themselves in Stacey's wit and wisdom.

The photo above is a picture that I treasure. Not because it is just Stacey, but because a dear friend of mine took the time to think of me. Stacey Julian was at a book signing at Scrapbooker's Paradise in Calgary when my friend, Sandy, realized that I probably did not have her autograph. Knowing how much the book meant to me, she grabbed a piece of patterned paper off the shelf (that matched what Stacey was wearing) and had Stacey write me a note on the paper. While she was writing to me, Sandy took a photo of her, so that I could scrapbook my mentor. What a friend!!! It made my day!!!!!

Every time I see this photo, I smile. I scrapbooked the picture, on the paper with the note and I am SOOOO happy that I found the "Big Picture" book before I started my fall scrapbooking marathon. It will remind me to journal properly - not just about the events themselves, but about the feelings associated with the activity. Scrapbooking, for me, is so much more than the sum of its parts. I want my great, great, great grandchildren to know who I was and what I dreamed about. I want to live on!