One for the scrapbook

Would it trouble you to know that I once attempted scrapbooking? I was trawling the internet this evening, researching a story and all, when I came across a scrapbooking site (it was relevant, I promise). And it all came back.

I have a secret stash of scrapbooking materials, shoved into the back of a dark corner of the garage. I even completed two pages. Two. Whole. Pages.

To set the scene, my foray into this decorative world began not long after the birth of Mr6 (I can feel you nodding now, muttering about hormones). I was so enamoured of the beauty of my creation (being Mr6 himself) and the 4672 photographs that I had taken of him (in the first three months) that I wanted to do something with them. Digital photography has a lot to answer for if you ask me.

A girl in my Mothers’ Group introduced me to the notion of scrapbooking. What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. So I went out – and a time when getting out the door was a major feat – and bought the stuff. Pages and pages of pretty paper. Stickers. Cut-out thingies. Ruler thingies. Badges that said stuff like ‘baby’. Tags that spelt out ‘little man’. Decals.

I know. What exactly did I think I was going to do with it all?

To be fair, I began. I made the aforementioned two pages. Between breastfeeding, not sleeping, working (oh yes, I forgot to mention that, as a freelancer, I just kept on writing), changing nappies. Etc. And I realised something that my hormone-drenched mind would have known pre-hormones. I have no patience for that sort of thing.

None.

Not only that, but visually-speaking, I’m, um, in need of guidance. The only subject I ever well-and-truly failed at school was Art. F. Not even maths came close to that. My major work in year 10 (my last Art class ever) was a half-finished painting of some rocks that looked like Medusa’s hair (I was supposed to ‘shade it in’ but, you know, was expressing my creative right, um, not to) and some pencil drawings of ‘surreal’ stuff, in the Dali style, which were really just 'so awful'.

On the other hand, I did very well in the Art Essay section. Which says it all.

I confess that the sight of the finished pages on the scrapbooking site did bring on a pang. It looks great when done well. But I didn’t linger long and didn’t dash to the cupboard to pull out my own ‘stuff’.

Some sleeping hormones are best left undisturbed.

{image: MummyScraps}