Telling a story

Someone once said that each piece of art needs a story. As does each layout. As does each album.

When I was making this album, "The Closets of My Life", there was nothing on the market thick enough to put it all in. Remember, each page is made from foam core board. So although the whole album is just 14 pages...it is about 4" thick. My only option was to make an album from scratch. I covered pressboard with linen. Cut out a hole and inserted a doll house door that really opens. Across the top I used mica, copper, a ticket stub, a button, and a dictionary clipping to spell out the words "The Closets of my Life". And of course, a key and a lock. And I used coated wire to "hinge" the album together along the edge.



When you open the doors, you see mini photos from 26 years of my life (1 every other year) and 2 blank spots for photos from 2005 and 2008. Another true testament to the bad hair days of my life!!!



Simply open up the door to see the full LO and this poem that I wrote for this album:


Where I keep my secrets
And hide my scrapbooks too
A place for all my journals
Where no one ever looks

Momentos in boxes
My locked up diary too
My favorite dolls and toys
Some are old, some are new

When I was young I′d hide
Things from my 3 sisters
We'd always seem to fight
Over what was mine or theirs

And as a teenager
I’d lock my things up tight
And take them out to read
when it was late at night.

I married my sweetheart
And didn’t want to share
Any of my old loves
I hoped he wouldn't care.

And when my son was born
I wrote down all my thought
So maybe one day soon
He'll read what I forgot.

Now the years have passed
My closets are bulging
I don't know what to do
No more room for my things.

They're always a mess
There's never enough room
I can't find anything
It's time to get the broom.

What can I get rid of?
Nothing that I can see!
It's all so important
It is all about me!!

Now here's a chance for you
To come and take a peek
And you will gladly see
The things my closets keep.



As I have already shared these closets in my blog, you can find them here:

2008
1998
1988
1978
1968
1958

The title from each of those layouts then comes together to form a new poem:



The season of my life keep spinning on the wheel of time
Unfolding our teenage years with these memories of mine.
Revealing unimagined life with a baby this fine
All my bags are packed & I'm sliding on without a dime.
Recessed deep in my heart was the love you have made divine
Opening dreams & Making them real, now that's my design!!!



This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour, all the day long, this is my story, hope you will say she′s had a great life, she′s loved every day!!! (If you grew up in a rural country Sunday School....you will be singing by now!)

That really is what my story is all about, that no matter what has happened in my life, through the good and the sad, I have loved and been loved by my family, my friends, and my Lord. What more could I have ever asked for? My life has changed and evolved over time, as have the shapes of my closets, the things I have kept, and the memories I have cherished. My prayer today is that my closets will continue to grow, to change, and to expand. And that no matter what the size or shape that my closet may be, that I will have grace to accept it, love to put in it, and memories to share with others for all time.

May all your closets be filled with changing seasons, teenage memories, unimagined life, some good and some sad, a lot of love, and dreams that you design!!!

Destiny is not something you wait for.

Destiny is choice. - Walter Anderson

When I designed the album, "The Closets of my Life" in the fall of 2003....I had only been scrapbooking since February of that year. So you can see that I learned quickly....and went way beyond the boundaries even back then. As I was picking a closet every decade, I decided to do a "dream" closet for 2008. I was halfway through the decade. Kerry and I had married. Our life together was just an adventure as he was happily showing me the world, trying to expand who I was.



Here's what I wrote in 2003 about 2008:

In 2008, I will be 56 years old. Colleen will be 55, Elaine will be 54 and April will be 52, and my son, Jason, will be 30. There are already new memories in this closet. The 4 Moore Girls took their first vacation together in 33 years. We went to Puerto Vallarta for a week. A year later, April′s husband died and that will change our future. Kerry has a new granddaughter. I will need to keep things for her! I′ve lost 30 lbs and I have retired. For the first time in my life, I am able to stay at home!!! I have time to go back through all my memories and put them in scrapbooks and display all the things I′ve saved these many years!!!

There are planned events that I will add to my closet! In January 2004, we are going on a 15 day cruise down through the Panama Canal. I hope to get the first stamp in my passport on this trip! I want to go to Israel. Maybe my son will get married and have children; maybe I will be a Grandma! I would love to open a scrapbook store and design a line of scrapbook paper.

I have designed a huge walk in closet for my future, filled with all my scrapbook stuff. Filled with Chatterbox stuff!!! I know I am going to need a whole lot more space to store all my memories, my scrapbooks, my journals, my keepsakes, and my secrets!!! My life is so full right now, I cannot imagine it getting any better, but I know that it will!!!

As I look back at the closets of my life, they are full of wonderful memories, things that I love to touch and feel, stories that can make me laugh and cry. The seasons of my life continue to spin on the wheel of time. Each day that God gives me, He allows me to be a part of this wonderful, unimagined life of mine. One day, I will walk on, but hopefully these memories of mine will live forever tucked away in the closets of my life!






My dream back then was to own a scrapbook store and I decided to create one inside of this pop-up layout. Of course, I was doing this for a chatterbox contest...so this is filled with Chatterbox supplies.




You can see 2 rows of mini layouts. I simply downsized copies of projects I had done. Then 5 rows of product. Did I really want to own a store? Yep...I even made an offer on a local store that was going out of business. But it fell through and today, in 2008, I am truly grateful for that!



Another row of mini layouts across the top. Across the bottom are mini file folders filled with 1" squares of Chatterbox paper.



I do not own a store...rather I have a studio that looks much like this. Walls filled with product, layouts everywhere...tables for my friends to come and play with. All the fun benefits of owning a store...none of the risk, stress or worry...and loads of time to create and design just the way I like.

I'm so glad I did not wait to own a store. I'm so glad that I created my own destiny...having a place to play all the time!

How fast the past 5 years have flown! This month marks the 5th anniversary of my artistic career. Sort of fun!

Into each life

a little rain must fall. Continuing here to share from my album, The Closets of my Life....Jason was 10 years old in 1988 and had severe asthma. After 31 days in intensive care, the doctors said that he would be dead in 2 years. I didn't know what to do. I was so afraid that they were right, but I was so determined to make them wrong. I sold everything we owned and moved to San Diego. All we had were our clothes, our photos and scrapbooks and a few things for the kitchen. I was on my own, a single mom without a dime. And I was a thousand miles away from my sisters. I had no idea where my life would take me. I had one single solitary goal...to keep this child alive.



The house we lived in had sliding doors for closets, so I recreated them here. Sort of bland, huh? These layouts are done on foam core board which I hollowed out to give me almost 1/4" depth inside the closets. So hang on...it's what's behind the doors that counts!



Every night after school, I took Jason to the beach and told him to play in the ocean. I told him that the salt in the water would heal his lungs. I prayed every moment of every day knowing that if he died, I would surely die as well. Fear encompassed my life. Fear drove me to create breathing exercises, games that forced him to use his lungs, and a daily regime of drugs and nebulizer treatments. Within 2 years, he was well on the road to recovery and our new life brought us new friends, new interests, new hobbies and new collections. And in no time at all my closets were once again filled to the brim...perhaps fuller than they had ever been.



I had a full time day job, and on weekends, I worked in an antique shop. So this closet is filled with junk! But it's also filled with photos of my sisters, notes about their lives, and you can see little notes tucked inside of purses...and little scrapbooks that I have recreated....holding secrets from my past.



I have the templates to make each of these closets so if you want to make them for yourself, just let me know! And although the doors slide back and forth, they also flip up for easy access to what's hidden behind them.

It has to rain in order for rainbows to shine. And behind every cloud is a silver lining. I have learned that a little rain in life is good. And that closets packed to the brim with memories are worth more than anything else!


Closets already shared:
1978
1968
1958

My unimagined life

Continuing with the Closets of My Life album....the next decade was 1978. (1958 and 1968 have been shared.) And again, using all Chatterbox papers, each decade is a 2 page "layout". This is the year that my first son was born. He is the reason for my unimagined life because no matter what they tell you about being a mom, giving birth....you just cannot imagine it until you have experienced it!



I was married and we had purchased a tiny 900 sq ft house right out of the 1950s. The closets had bi-fold wood doors, so I stapled floral fabric on the doors to brighten them up. In my album, I recreated the bifold doors with floral paper. I've used foam core board to give me enough depth to create closets that you can actually put things into.

December 78!!! So unimagined! So completely, sweetly surprising! I'm in love. I'm married and now my heart is just bursting with love for my newborn son, Jason. My closet no longer has room for anything from my past, so everything is tucked away into scrapbooks, photo albums, boxes and trunks. My son has his own closet, but it's really mine.



Inside the left door, I continue the story of the 4 Moore Girls. I reproduced my BSBA on the bottom. Colleen is now married with 2 kids.



April is married with a son:



And when you open up the closet, more treasures in the center. I kept the rose from the alter on the day my son was baptized. I kept a shiny new coin from the year of his birth. I painted Winnie-the-pooh and Tiger on the wall in his room. I make up little songs to sing to him because there is nothing written that expresses how I feel about him and how much I love him. I sing to him all the time, rocking him, loving him with all my heart, with all my being. I have never known a love like this. I have never experienced a joy like this. Each day, each moment, this baby of mine reveals to me that I have the capacity, the ability to love him more than I did the day before. Each day he reveals new emotions to me, new feelings, new hopes and new fears. He has altered my life, my goals and most definitely, he has altered the closets of my life forever.



And when you pull down the ID tag from the hospital, under that is an altered pop-up card....behind the window you can see the photo of Tiger and Pooh that were painted on his wall.



An unimagined life...it all began the day my first son was born. My altered closets...always room for one more memory!

And 40 years ago.....

Back in 68!! Oh what a year that was! Life was everything I dreamed it would be!!! Sweet 16, first kiss, first love, first heartbreak!!! What a very special time for me!!! Sharing secrets with my sisters, sock hops and band practice. We took the telephone inside the parlor closet when we were talking with our boyfriends. We thought no one could hear us that way!!! Our closet still had games and books, but now I added empty candy boxes, dried corsages, vacation souvenirs, newspaper clippings, pep rally banners, photos of slumber parties. I kept my diary locked up tight just so my sisters would never know what that first kiss was like for me!!!

Awhile back, I started to share my album "The Closets of my Life". It's an album that picks a year each decade and tells a story as you weave through the "book". I shared 1958. Today, I'll add 1968.

You know, your closet is where you put your shoebox filled with momentos, and where you hide your secrets. Loads of things from our past gets tucked away so I did the same thing with these pages. On the left, the title is "Unfolding our teenage years with these memories of mine". I put the round circles (playing tiles) over the f, h, and s. I graduated from Frankton High School...FHS. I took a page from my yearbook with all the autographs on it and used that as the mat for the photo frame. Don't you remember those straight a-line shifts? I think they are back in style now....40 years later!




The closet is based on my Great Aunt Muriel's wood wardrobe. A "closet" that I used to have in my house. The doors opened and then there were drawers inside on one side and you could hang clothes on the other side. I did the entire album using Chatterbox papers....this was made in 2003, one of my very first scrapbook projects.





So you open it up and there on both sides are the pockets....filled with memories and collectibles from my past. On the top, center flap is a photo of the 4 Moore girls with dad, our brother and both of our grandmother's. Mom must have been behind the camera.



And then you open up the entire "layout". What a wonder!

And yes, that telephone pops up!!!



My closet in 1968 was in a new house. That was the year we moved to the parsonage in Perkinsville. And although I had moved into our "new" house on the corner of Grandma's farm when I was 5, this is the first move that I remember. Our closet was filled with games (see the mini chinese checkers?), and I played the clarinet. There's a mini scrapbook tucked into this side titled "Frankton Indiana). and I have silk garter covers....I wore my first girdle this year. Sooooo glad we no longer have to struggle to get into those things today! LOL!



Junior year, junior prom. And yes, that is the actual pendant that he gave me the night of prom. The matching bracelet was just too big to fit into this page, but don't worry...I'll find a place for it yet! He joined the Air Force and wrote me beautiful letters that I hid in my closet for years. Couldn't let my sisters read those!!!



A closet isn't full unless there are a pair of ice skates....one of our favorite things to do in the winter. And right below them is a pair of 14 KT gold hammered snowflakes that I picked out on a summer vacation to Cripple Creek, Colorado. Back then it was an artists colony and I watched the guy make the earrings...and just had to have them. If I remember right, they cost $14.00....a fortune in 1968! Student of the week clipping from the newspaper, my report card for that year, and a viewmaster reel.....life was good!



We started going to Prairie Baptist Church that year and I picked my Life Verse from the Bible which is written inside one of the books stashed on the shelf in my closet below. I was a Jr Hi camp counselor with my best friend, Nancy. I was stage manager for our Junior Class Play, Our Town. It was the year I started doing genealogy. 1968 was the year of the mini skirt, but our dresses were below the knee. It was a church thing back then. Amazing how high you can get your hemline when you add a belt after you leave home! OK, mom, don't read this! LOL! I even paper pieced the saddle oxfords and shoes at the bottom of my closet.



The telephone is just the cutest thing! I've demo'd how to make this on DIY and you can find the instructions there. Yes, this layout was shown on DIY....just so much fun!!!



OK, you know the tune to the song (Oh What a Night!)....so just sing along with me

Oh, what a year that was, back in '68, What a very special time for me, life was great!

It was a very special year, a very special time......

Attention Flight Attendants!

You know, traveling with altered luggage is just like having a blue flashing light and shouting, "Attention Flight Attendants"....and then "there's something you gotta see coming down the aisle!"

I'm finally sharing my Chatterbox luggage. Again, something that is just too big to ship off to a magazine to get published....but something that turns heads no matter where I go.



Invariably I will hear someone behind me look at the image of Lucy McGoo on the luggage and say, "Who is Lucy McGoo?" I will stop, turn around, smile, and say, "Lucy McGoo is the child in you, she wants to play, we hope you have a great day!" and then turn back around and walk away....listening for the giggles that always follow!



The back, which no one really sees....could use a bit more now that I see it through the eyes of my camera!



I do love the smaller handbag. This is what my 2006 calendar fit inside of. Well, that and not much else! These are by Chatterbox and no longer available, but once in awhile, I do see them on ebay. Originally a 5 piece set (yep, I had to have all 5 pieces) I found mine on ebay for about $99 total. I think it originally sold for $400. Just a totally fun set to travel with!



Looks like a little repair work is due here...it's supposed to say "R we there yet?" You can see I haven't traveled with this for a few months...it's almost always my carry-on luggage.



As a stacked set, it's just perfect to travel with. I'd have to say that I've had flight attendents threaten to steal this from me. The large bag fits nicely in the overhead bins and the little one goes right under the seat in front of me. I have never traveled with this set without getting numerous comments. The funniest one is that people will ask me if I'm a flight attendant....of course, I tell them no, I'm an artist!



Now, would you dare to alter your carryon luggage? Doesn't have to be Chatterbox brand...could be anything at all. Most of these are stickers that I purchased, or were given to me, but many are things that I printed and then adhered with E6000. It would work on any canvas or leather bag, hard sided or soft sided. I think it's about time for me to add a few more embellishments to this set.....and then plan my next trip!

Barbra sang.....

Do you ever sit and listen to the words of a song and get your inspiration from it? I do. I think songwriters are beyond amazing! In one of Barbra Streisands songs, the lyrics read:

"I say we each choose roads to call our own but none of us is traveling through this universe alone. And this circle just goes on and on, it began before us...it will be here when we've gone. And this circle goes on and on connecting our humanity, joining me to you and you to me. Seasons keep spinning on the wheel of time, we stand, we fall, we struggle up the mountains we must climb. Different dreams may colour what we see ahead but our lives are strong together, on a common thread, and this circle just goes on and on."

I pick the songs I like based on their words. And from my favorite songs often come some of my favorite projects. One of my first projects was an album titled "The Closets of My Life". It's been shown on PBS Scrapbooking & Memories as well as on DIY. I picked a closet from each decade of my life, reconstructed it, filled it with memories and just giggled the entire time!




In 1958, we were still living in our little house on the corner of my Great Great Grandpa House's farm. Very plain closet. But I made little pockets around the door that open and contain all kinds of memories of my childhood. Candy that dad brought home in his lunchbox, boardgames that we played....fun little things!



On the back of the closet door, my journaling reads: "My Sister's Closet...Just one tiny closet, and one tiny bedroom, shared by all 4 of us. Not many clothes, but a whole lot of games and books. Not many things, but our Bibles, our Bible study lessons, and our Sunday hats and shoes. My memories have faded over time. But when I look at these pictures I can still feel that summer day when we created phones out of tin cans, we buried our dolls in the sand, and tickled our cats tails. I can still see the swingset that dad built and hear our laughter and our screams when we swang too high. I remember playing with Grandma's jewelry on her bed, swimming in the horse trough and wading in the creek. Our lives were rich with love, with family, and blessings from our Lord. Most of all, we had each other!!! Where has time gone? If I am left with nothing but the memories of my youth, then I will cherish my thoughts of those summer days, playing with you, the innocence of our youth, and all those wonderful memories that I have of growing up with you in our little house on the corner of our Great Great Grandfather's farm."



And then inside the closet, tiny paper-pieced outfits that spin on a wheel, dressing a photo of me in the style of that generation.



The seasons of my life keep spinning on the wheel of time.....this circle...just goes on and on... connecting our humanity, joining me to you and you to me.