Gentry
"Peninsula FYI"
October, 2004 |
Collecting Memories Gentry’s Christine VanDeVelde
discusses the joy of collecting family memories for generations to come
Someone once said there is no way to be a perfect mother, but a million
ways to be a good one. My own maternal shortcomings include a lack of
talent for "make believe" and such negligible hand-eye coordination that
I'm a charity case when it comes to playing Monkey Ball on the Gamecube. I
have a low tolerance for noise and a complete aversion to camping and
shared restroom facilities. But, to my credit, I do love a good story – in
a musical or a movie, a painting, song, or picture book, from a stage or
the mind of a 3-year-old. So one of the ways I can be a good mother is by
collecting the stories of my daughter's life. You see, children love
stories, too, and none so much as those in which they are the main
character.
For the first few years of her life, I entertained my daughter by telling
and re-telling a few key stories in which she was the star. How her father
brought a talisman for a safe delivery from Tokyo's Suitengu Shrine and
hung it from my bed at Stanford Hospital when she was born. The tale of
her first tantrum, thrown in the candy aisle at Bianchini's grocery store
while dressed in Belle's ball gown and Lucite mules. Her demand that the
stable make "a special exception" to the rules and let her wear a dress
for riding lessons.
But memory is tricky, especially when you have your children late in life.
So, about ten years ago, I started scrapbooking. (Yes, it's a verb.) A
scrapbook, of course, is simply an elaborate photo album. Such a project,
however, was not natural for me -- my last satisfactory crafts encounter
occurred in a summer parks program when I was eight over a plaster of
Paris project. So, trust me, artistic talent is not necessary. It does
help, however, to have someone like Ann McPherson at the table with you.
Ann is a consultant with Creative Memories, the Minnesota company that is
the source of Library of Congress-quality archival techniques and
materials for preserving your child's Barbie Valentines and birthday
cards. Ann and I have a perfect partnership. She provides the craft and I
provide the content.
Since for me the best stories are rich in detail, after Ann lays out a
page for the scrapbook, I write the story of what happened with all the
names and places and all the details that escaped the pictures: the gifts
she received for her 6th birthday, what kind of pizza she ate at Harrod's
in London (ham and extra cheese), how Madeline bid her good night (in
French, mais oui!), her favorite books and best-loved Disney video. I want
to remember what breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen cost in 1998, that she was
obsessed with the television show The Babysitter's Club when she was ten,
and that her favorite character in Lion King was Scar.
I also want to create a context for the pictures and stories. So the
scrapbooks are layered with mementoes, trophies and souvenirs: ticket
stubs, menus, playbills, report cards, birthday party napkins, original
artwork, swim meet ribbons, the first alphabet written in her own hand,
and the Disneyland weather forecast. These tokens evoke the past in ways
I'd never otherwise remember.
But what I try hardest to get into these books are those things where my
daughter's voice and the voices of her friends and family most clearly
come through. These are the things that will help us re-visit the terrible
twos and the wonderful tweens. There is the story of the bee that stung
the cow dictated to her nursery school teacher, the packing lists she
makes before vacations, letters to Santa, and a play she wrote with a
cousin when she was seven, titled "A Romantic Manchion: Pairis." Twenty
years from now, when she opens the card her friend Katie posted from
Italy, she will hear her friend as if she were sitting next to her. In the
summer of 2004, 14-year-old Katie wrote, "Venice – 3 things! beautiful
city, great shopping… hot boys." Remember a time like that? If you
scrapbook, you will.
With one in four American households now scrapbooking, an entire
industry has grown up to support the phenomenon, which boasts annual sales
of over $2.5 billion. The DIY (Do It Yourself) cable network airs its
Scrapbooking show twice a day and Hewlett-Packard has launched an online
community for scrapbookers featuring downloadable art, layout ideas and
technical advice on the use of scanners and digital photography. You can
also pick up a copy of the scrapbooking magazine Creating Keepsakes, which
boasts a circulation of more than half a million.
Scrapbookers spend $1.4 billion annually on supplies like paper and card
stock, photo files, adhesive pockets, three-dimensional embellishments,
decorative fiber and stickers. Petaluma-based Mrs. Grossman’s Stickers
pumps out 800,000 stickers per hour! Locally, you can find supplies at:
Michael’s in Redwood City, San Mateo, Sunnyvale and Cupertino; Target in
San Mateo, Redwood City and Mountain View; and Diddam’s in Palo Alto,
Mountain View, San Carlos and Cupertino.
There are also now more than 3,000 scrapbooking stores in the United
States. We highly recommend a pilgrimage to the mecca of scrapbooking --
Scrapbook Dreams at 1669-1 Hollenbeck Road in Sunnyvale, which carries an
elite designation from EK Success, the company that’s the gold standard
for creative arts and crafts products. You can view the more than 8,000 EK
Success products, including the exquisite Jolee’s Boutique and Jolee’s For
You lines, at www.eksuccess.com, where you can create a supply list to
take along with you when you visit Scrapbook Dreams.
For hands-on help, classes are offered at Sunnyvale’s Scrapbook Dreams and
at Scrapbooks in Bloom at 2086 El Camino Real in Palo Alto. You can locate
your nearest Creative Memories consultant (there are 90,000 in the U.S.)
at their website, www.creativememories.com. Creative Memories consultant
Ann McPherson can be reached at 650.329.1488. Enjoy! |
