Eleven years ago.....

that's when Kerry and I met. I was cleaning out stuff in the basement today and came across these photos.....my goodness....have we changed!!!



That pic was probably taken a couple of months after we met - he would do anything, even wear a cowboy hat! And here's my sis and her hubby on the same day. We must have been in our "cowboy" phase!



I counted that I have about 12,000 photos on CD, DVD and hard drives. And then everything I took before I went digital. Absolutely no plans to scrap even 10% of them! But I do think I will start looking through them, pull out the ones I like the best and start to write the storeis...before I forget them.

It would go something like this:

Eleven years later, I look at these photos and can still remember the fun of taking him up to my sister's house for the holidays. I had just had the first of 2 major surgeries, a year apart, and was quite weak. He was so caring. I knew it was love before I knew I loved him. How fun to have grown the past 11 years with him, taking off our cowboy hats, putting on travel caps, seeing the world together, becoming an artist, learning how to not work in an office every day, learning how to stay at home with him in the house all day long. A huge adventure. A grande journey. A million stories that need to be written down before I forget them.

What the heck! If I forget them....I'll just make up something better! LOL!!!

Shadowbox Memories, Part 2 of 2

So have you decided to pull the kids baby things out of storage and put them on display? You don't have to do vintage like I did - there are so many wonderful scrapbook papers and embellishments available today - I'm almost tempted to re-do these!



First thing I noticed - I never finished this one! Jeff's senior photo is missing! Well, one of these days....



I tried to keep them different because the boys have very different personalities. Jason loves classical music and Jeff loves county western. But I wanted the same elements in each box. They both got teddy bears because when they were little, I made and sold bears.



Jeff's dedication certificate, cigar, flowers. The baby blanket was made by my sis, Elaine.



His baby outfit, photo, and more chipboard dolls:



So many things to keep - so many memories.



Another vintage pop-up with greenery behind her. Angels watcing over my kids, every day.



Cute little hanky pockets stitched and shaped to hold flowers



His spoon - stitched to the ribbon to hide the thread.



Jeff loved trains and when I found this printer's block, I just had to add it!




Each of their boxes has a Mexican peso given to them by a family friend, and a silver dollar from the year of their birth.



The possibilities for shadowboxes have no limits. You could do one for each year of school, for ancestors, for marriage....well for any life event. It's just a great way to display momentos that are too lumpy for scrapbooks! 2' x 3' is just the perfect size to keep baby blankets, christening outfits and more! And with glass front doors - you never have to dust! These are 12 years old and look as good s the day I put them together!

Shadowbox Memories, Part 1 of 2

These shadowboxes are 2' x 3', with hinged glass fronts and a total depth of 2 1/2". This is Jason's box, he's my oldest son, soon to turn 29. I started by laying a sheet of foam core board in the bottom of the box and covered that with his baby blanket. The blanket was made by mom's mom.



I think I made these boxes about 1995 - long before I took up scrapbooking. But obviously, I was into the vintage look. This is a little pop-up card. But the halo is actually Grandma's wedding ring. I think it's quite fun to hide little things like this and make you have to look to see what's there! Idea # 2 - make a list of what's in the shadowbox, who it came from, it's date or origin, and put that in a pocket on the back of the shadowbox. Just so no one throws away Grandma's wedding ring!!!



Here's the cigar his dad handed out and his baby spoon. I didn't want to tape or glue a thing, so I've wrapped fine thread around these and then stitched them to the baby blanket. More like a loose basting stitch.



His baptismal certificate, the rose from the alter that day, a hanky from his godmother - it's folded as a baby bonnet. Now, you can't stitch paper, but you can use a lot of "T-pins" to hold things in place.



Here's a really fun technique. I wanted a unique way to showcase his photos K-12. Behind his senior photo is a vintage fan. I cut the ovals using a craft knife and put his photo in the center of each blade of the fan. I've got his life in a nutshell right before my eyes every day of the week!



These are the cutest little crocheted sandals that his godmother made for him. Jason was a premie and only weighed 6 pounds and his feet were so tiny. These are about 2" long.



I think it was obvious back then I was destined to do collage! His baby photo is in a counted cross stitch frame my dear friend Pam made. His first baby toy, the newspaper clipping of his birth, more flowers from the day he was born tucked in a hanky pocket. And I've threaded silk ribbon through the items. Do you see his first lock of hair tied to the bow?




And here's his christening outfit. Handmade by me! White velour onesie, matching jacket and hat. Pale blue shirt with a matching bowtie. I tell you - he was just too cute that day!!! This was attached to the blanket using pins. Note the hanging chipboard boys attached to silk ribbon looped from the top frame. Lots of dried greenery and it's still just fine! You can even see the tassle from his graduation cap hanging to the left.



And I was definitely not a stamper when I made this, but I found these wood printer blocks that spelled his name and one that is the Boy Scout emblem. I couldn't resist adding them to his shadowbox. Note the metal corners that I added to the outside of the box.



I've received hundreds of compliments on this box over the years and it's so much more fun than to have everything tucked away. Maybe this is just scrapbooking on a grand scale? It doesn't have a title and there's no journaling, but sometimes, memories stand alone, just as they are!

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......

Walnut Grove Wolves

I started this blog saying I would write about my childhood memories. A huge part of that is my grade school, Walnut Grove. The address was either rural route Cicero or Arcadia, Indiana. Not the Walnut Grove from Little House on the Prairie....but not far off in concept! A very small school with only about 20 students per grade with all 12 grades in the same building. Those classmates are the kids that I saw every single day for 9 years (Kindergarten through 8th grade) and were my childhood chums.

Our school colors were Gold and Purple...and we were the Wolves. I remember a mounted wolf inside a glass case in the school as the official mascot. Note, we didn't bother with costumes with someone dressed up running around the gym floor...we had the real thing back then!!!

One day, mom asked me if I knew the story about how the wolf got there and of course, I had no idea, so she sent me a photo of the "capture" and I've posted what she wrote below it:


"Maybe I was 5 or 6 years old. I was spending the night with my Aunt Muriel
House who lived between Cicero and Walnut Grove in White River Twp.
Indiana. There had been a wolf getting into the farmers sheep and killing
them. So they organized a hunt to kill it. That was legal and encouraged
at that time. Every one who gathered took their vehicles out into a field
and were in a circle so they could shine their head lights together and
could see to kill the wolf, while others were chasing the wolf into that
direction. My Aunt had warned me to be very quiet, not to scare the wolf if
it showed itself. She warned me and warned me.. However, the minute that
wolf showed up in the circle of lights, I stood up and shouted "There it
is" I was so excited. What she did to me, I do not remember!!! Later,
the wolf was Mounted and put in a glass case in the Walnut Grove School and
was there for years. They were known as the Walnut Grove Wolves. I was
told my Uncle Charlie shot the wolf. If you know of other stories about the
last wolf in White Rive Twp, let me know."

So if you have photos or stories about the Walnut Grove Wolf, please email them to me and I will send them on to mom (Annabel House Moore) and I'm sure she will email you back!

Funny what I remember about that wolf....it scared the crap out of me! I never like it....but it was the source of great pride...and great enthusiasm. It was our mascot and we were the Wolves....and we cheered like nothing else at basketball games.

As an artist, perhaps we each need a mascot that can be our source of pride, can cause us to be enthusiastic, and can cheer us on as we endeavor to design new things for others to enjoy. Ah! That childhood spirit...the ability to scream at the top of our lungs about a ball going into a basket...the sheer joy of great victory when your team wins...we could all use that a little bit every day!