My children love to go through
the recycling bin, find store circulars and cut out pictures. Or they cut out comics from the newspaper. So far, these things have just gotten returned to the recycling bin. . .
until Rebecca reminded me of the old way of scrapbooking, before die-cuts, parties, and Creative Memories.
People used to cut out poems, pretty pictures, and the like, and paste them in brown-paper scrapbooks. I suddenly remembered sitting on a little stool at my great-grandmother's feet while she rocked and cut out pictures from seed catalogs. I have a scrapbook she made in this manner.
I also remembered my mother making scrapbook pages to give to retiring principals and golden-anniversary parents. She kept a box where she laid away pretty cards and clippings, much the same way I build my fabric stash now.
In a flash, I dug out some blank books, scissors, and gluesticks for my kids. They were immediately, deeply, absorbed. Now my children have scrapbooks. Now they have a way to process all the delightful images they see. I am so pleased to have given them supplies at the crucial point in their fad.
I hope this is also a way to handle their budding consumerism. I don't want to encourage my children to pore over circulars, but if they do, they can at least paste their infatuation in their scrapbooks. And maybe that will lay the covetousness to rest (or not - time will tell).
10 comments:
You've got my creative juices flowing now.
Perfect! It should satisfy them to know they can look through their books anytime they want to and see their favorites : )
I have a little chest full of papers and pictures that I use to make cards. It satisfies me to know that I can create stationary out of things I've collected for free : )
Oh, what a lovely, lovely post! I love your thoughts and memories about scapbooking... when scrapbooks truly were a hodge-podge of scraps!! And, I love, love the way you passed the activity on to your children -- simple yet wonderful.
Very great idea. Way to go, having the supplies to give them. And I really love the idea that it helps them process the beauty AND their consumerism. I see know reason why this wouldn't be true. (Unless it provides them with a visual to keep the Wanted Thing at the forefront of their minds.)
this is so cool i love it. take me back in time. your last paragraph gave me a good laugh -- ha ha ha.
I LOVE this idea! And I'm so not crafty...but this doesn't overwhelm me. I have always liked collages and groups of images that are interesting...hmmm...you have my wheels turning! Might make myself one!
Enjoyed catching up on your blog posts and your comments on mine :-)
where did you find the paper already inserted-type of (scrap) book? I want the old-fashioned type scrapbooks, not the plastic/photo type scrapbooks. I wish to build an old-fashioned scrapbook for each of my grandchildren, not the modern photoshop professional-looking type. I love that you are teaching your children to be creative and record their own history.
Hi Carol, these came from Ten Thousand Villages. I haven't checked their store online to see if they still have them. Good luck! My kids love them.
I find it so encouraging that there are still people doing scrapbooks the original way. To me, the "new" scrapbooking puts too many constraints on creativity (not to mention it drives its own kind of consumerism with all the supplies available). I like the old way better! I notice this post is from over a year ago - do your children still use their scrapbooks?
Hi Jenny, thanks for your interest. The children still cut things out, but I often have to remind them of the scrapbooks' existence. So they're not as popular as they were around here when I wrote this post.
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