Scrapbooking

Lisa, Corinne and Marilyn



Monday mornings a group of us get together to make memory albums. I learned this creative craft in 2000 when my close friend, Susan, from Massachusetts introduced me to Creative Memories. She was a consultant for that scrapbook product company for two years, wearing me down with her pleas to start "cropping" with her because it was so much fun. I finally succumbed, spent a small fortune on supplies, and made my first album: Friends in Warm Places. With this theme, I made a scrapbook of all the warm places Jim and I went - to Safety Harbor, Florida, to visit Jeff and his family; to DisneyWorld for a learning vacation, and many trips to our Aruban timeshare.

Susan was right - it was a lot of fun! I felt great when I finished a particularly artistic page. In addition to pictures, I added comments, stickers, and other accoutrements to make the book visually appealing and to tell stories from my life. I went on to make a heritage album of my family, a small scrapbook about my beloved cat, Schmutz, a big album about our move from Massachusetts to Florida where we built a house, and now I'm working on a two-volume (or more) album of my life.

When I moved to Costa Rica, I brought my scrapbooking supplies with me, but they sat untouched until last year when I made a 50th birthday scrapbook for Lisa. She liked the album and expressed an interest in learning to scrapbook. Corinne jumped on the bandwagon, too, so there were three of us who started to get together. I taught them what I knew, and they are adding their own style of creativity to their projects. Marilyn is a quilter, but wanted to hang out with us on scrapbooking mornings, so she makes the fourth in our core group. When she has time, Rosemary joins us.

Our time together is developing rituals. We start with a scrumptious breakfast. After an hour or so, we start working. A theme song that has developed, whether Lisa likes it or not, is Gotta Be Startin' Something. We have a lot of fun, we get work done, and we are getting to know each other better.


Margie, Corinne celebrating her birthday, Marilyn