Caught up! I think.....

I must admit I envy the scrapbookers! My friend Marti is always doing creative things. She loves to make her own invitations(and other people's), memory albums, seat place holders, etc. She is a wonderful friend but I must admit I envy her creative abilities. I have other friends that go on scrapbooking weekends, where they all bring their supplies and work the weekend away!

I tried to document my children's lives. I made photo albums and took lots of pictures but little did I know the tools I was using was ruining the pictures! Yes it is true, my memories are all yellow! So I did what any defeated person does, I gave up. I quit doing albums. Except Christmas ones! About 20 years ago I took my Christmas album and completely overhauled it. I went year by year and took out the acid paper and did it all over. I used the same one that Marti made me (in 1976) but replaced the pages. Then it became too full so I made a second one with you guessed it, creative memories. I must admit....I hated doing it. It was so much work. I kept that one up until 2002. Then I fell behind. Each year I thought..."I'll catch up ...NEXT year". Now it is 2007 and I was 4 years behind. I had all the memories in separate bags nicely stashed away with the Christmas stuff. I started to realize that I would never catch up. I was a miserable failure. Then my beautiful daughter came over with memory books she had made for her grandpa. They were amazing! They only cost about $25.00! And there was no cutting, no pasting....no hassle. (sort of) She told me she made them on snapfish. I went there and for the past 3 days I have been getting caught up! Now, it took longer than I thought and more than a little frustrating, but I figure it is worth it! You can leave anytime you want and save your work. There is no mess to clean up. You can even download favorite cards you received by scanning them into your computer and add them to your book! I have 4 books on the way. 3 of them I did on snapfish and one on shutterfly. It takes quite a long time to download, even with cable, dsl or satellite (between my daughter, I and my office we have all of these and experienced the same problems on each), but if you don't mind and save your work on their site it is well worth it. I can't wait to see the finished product. That is a preview above. I figured out how to capture the picture from the screen (click HERE), so you could see what I am talking about. Anyway I feel so great, I am caught up and no longer a family memory looser. However my lifetime memories are in boxes in the hall.

On another note, Marti's daughter seems to have inherited the same creative ability. She made a wonderful painting for us for Christmas. Just look at it....

And you guessed it this picture is in my 2006 scrapbook page 12! (of 28 pages) Thanks Amy! It's amazing. I have it up in my living room! It is wonderful to be creative but for those of us who are not, there is snapfish!