Remember when...

Remember the day you graduated from High School or College? 

Remember the night you partied after graduation?

Remember the morning after the night you partied after graduation?

Look familiar?

This picture is of my 6-year-old son the morning after his kindergarten graduation. We're off to a good start.

Decoration Day

• Memorial Day, was originally called Decoration Day and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
• After World War I the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.
• Memorial Day is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90-363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays.

I edited the article, Memorial Day History, down to bullet points. If you would like to read the full article which is quite interesting if you are a history buff you can find it here: http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

My family takes the holiday a step farther and honors the dead of our entire family, military or not (and most are not).I grew up in Michigan but my family is from a small town in Indiana. When I was a kid we always visited my Grandmother and Aunt in Indiana for Memorial Day so my father could go to cemetery that day.

Dad would go to the store to get a bouquet of fake flowers (they were plastic in those days) because they lasted longer, then gather up a pair of garden shears, a whisk broom and a bag to clean up the clippings. He and my aunt would go to the cemetery and clip the long grass around the headstones of their father and grandparents, stick the flowers into the ground and say prayers.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
Amen.

They would work their way around the small Catholic cemetery where our ancestors were buried clipping and cleaning and praying for each person that we were related to.
I remember the year I first got to go with them. It was really kind of boring and really kind of cool at the same time. I'm sure that those visits helped increase my interest in history because I could relate it to real people. After the visit to the cemetery there would generally be a cookout at my grandmothers' house.

Last July my Aunt died so this year is the first time she gets the Memorial Day treatment. I didn't go with my Dad this year. But I was able to help in decorating the graves. I was asked to go get some flowers and make a bouquet for my Aunt and a larger arrangement for the entire family, "something long and low to put in front of the main stone", which is the grave of my great grandmother and great grandfather.

My son Evan graduated from Kindergarten on Friday (the post on that will be coming soon). Dad was here for the festivities. Which meant he was also available to watch Evan on Saturday. I was on a mission to find the right flowers and containers to hold them. I called home periodically but I got to shop at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, JoAnn Fabrics and Craft Fancy unaccompanied by a whining 6 year old. I was able to look at both floral stuff and paper crafty stuff. Bliss!

Sunday morning I put the arrangements together before Mass and after the service Dad left for Indiana. I just got the photos in my email of the bouquets in their final resting place. We pray the grounds keepers don't toss them too quickly. The long one will be hard to "toss" as it contains 4 very large stones from my garden as weighs. Here it is:

My favorite Dorothea Lange photo

Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

is now available on Flickr. This image of Florence Thompson (32) with three of her seven children is as near perfect a portrait as they come. They are destitute and her face shows concern but there is a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

This Library of Congress (LOC) image says "No known restrictions on publication" in the "Rights Info" section is happy news if you wanted to use it in a book, magazine, poster etc. LOC images include Matthew Brady images from The Civil War, images taken during the depression like the one here, and many others.

But there are so many other great historical images on Flickr as well from places like:
The Smithsonian Institution,
Bibliothèque de Toulouse in France,
The National Library of Wales,
New York Public Library
The Swedish National Heritage Board,
Oregon State University Archives,
The Brooklyn Museum,
The George Eastman House

It's well worth a look.

Halloween 2003 - Penguin Boy

Halloween 2003 - Penguin Boy
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

Ok so we're moving on and the learning curve is starting to flatten a smidge.
This page was done to celebrate Halloween 2003. My boy the penguin.

I used cardstock I had purchased in bulk at Costco. The solid colored cardstock is 2-sided (always think this sounds weird because all paper has 2 sides, but of course I mean the paper has different colors/patterns on the different sides) and when you fold it the crease is more of a crack and the white core shows. This was obviously PSU (pre-Stampin' Up!) as the quality is horrible for cards. So the rest of this this cardstock waiting to be scrapped upon, but I digress.

I used the first alphabet set I ever purchased from Stampin' Up! and a moon man face for the title. I like that it's embossed it adds a little something something. Kind of wish I still had that set on occasion.

The layout is clean, which is in sharp contrast to the area it was created in. I would love to create the busy brightly colored pages I see in the blogs but it goes against the grain when I get down to work on pages, cards, etc. I want to tell the story and the story is often hidden behind all the embellishments when I go the busy route. I don't scrap enough perhaps to free myself of the story aspect of it.

Enough of my rambling time to go clean, organize, pack something for this weekend.
TTFN

My first scrapbook page

4th of July 2003 - love at first sight/love at first bite
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

In November of 2002 my son was born but it took until the Fourth of July weekend of 2003 for me to visit her so they could meet. That weekend was also my son's first taste of watermelon so this is a page celebrating both of those events.

I don't care for my handwriting and I didn't have time to cut out every letter. 2003 (or more likely 2004 as it takes me a while to get going) was BC in my house — Before Cuttlebug, so I typed the subheads, Love at First Sight Love at First Bite, in Illustrator on the computer and did all the text there. I was so new to scrapbooking that I adhered the items directly to the white metal edged page. I wish I hadn't done that now.

Hopefully the pages I create this weekend will be a bit better.

There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness

KungFuPanda - there is no secret ingredient
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

This is a page I did a while back at a scrapbook event with a friend of mine. She was shocked that I had no pictures of my son on the page. Shocked at all the "empty" space - we call that "white space" in graphic design.

I scrapped the experience of going to see Kung Fu Panda. The awesomeness and attractiveness. I thought about journaling the who, what, when, where, why and decided against it as it may become too cluttered and detract from the design. Also in a year or 2 or 5 or 10 when we look at this page will all that really matter? The point of the page is to show what we loved about the movie the first time we saw it, on the big screen.

We own the DVD now and although I still like the movie a lot. The lines around the edge that were made to look like cookie fortunes still make me laugh, well ok now it's more of a snicker. And as with most animation there is something new I see each time I watch it.
_______________________________

This week I am preparing to go on another day-long scrap with my girlfriend so I will be showing you new pages each day of past pages I've done. You'll even get to see one of the first pages. I haven't posted them in the past because I am not a scrapper, I am a card maker and lately I haven't felt like a good carder but I am drawn to scrapping. Could be the 700 pictures we took on our Disney World Vacation in February? Could be because it in National Scrapbook Month? Whatever the reason you are going to see more pages here in the near future.

Stay tuned.