Scrap Booking, Anyone?

My journey to scrap booking dates back when I was a little girl of 7. Mother made scrapbooks from scratch~ from found objects in her milieu and from photographs of her childhood up until the time she was a college editor in her university. This continued on until she married my father, had eight kids and became a grandmother to nine little darlings. She kept them coming and expanding through years of careful safekeeping. Time and again, she’d pull them out from her closet when she was spring cleaning and was getting rid of her clothes she didn’t fit in anymore. I, on the other hand would pick up one of her scrapbooks, check it out, see-look at its content, read a little bit, touch and smell those that appealed to me immensely then I’d sit down to take a look at them with some seriousness about what I was reading. Actually, the very sense that made me engaged to reading some of her scrapbooks were her sense of aesthetics. Whenever I found one to have some glitzy bit, I’d go back and forth to that page. I was a child and colors, shapes and texture valued more to me over written text. And in the midst of my reading, she’d always with eloquence that meant, ”Be careful!” And I'd always be obedient to do whatever pleased her~ because I didn’t want to be restricted in seeing her scrapbooks ever again!

My best memory of her scrapbooks was seeing my first baby footprints in blue ink! They were in the front page! Seeing them made me smile and sigh. Awh! And with that scrapbook, it also had clippings about my birth announcement in the 4 different national newspapers in the Philippines like The Daily Mirror, Manila Times and the Daily Bulletin~to name a few. You see, I was the much-awaited first-born daughter of my parents and in celebration of my birth arrival in fact, my paternal grandmother bought a German upright piano for me and announced,
"Someday, she is going to be a pianist!"

I was born after 5 boys and then two girls were born later~ 4 years after me and with an interval of a year and a half each of their birth arrival. So my birth order spoke lot about my birth history as I was the youngest progeny for a time until I became the eldest daughter in a row of three girls. From the perspective of the elders during my time, my coming to life was indeed significant~thus the scrapbook con baby book that father bought for me was very special. It is so special that it took many years before mother could hand it over to me like a fine diamond. Coming to America two and half years ago, I decided to take it with me and it sits right here in the dresser of my home in northern California.

Another feature of mother's scrapbook on me (it was HOME AND GARDEN BABY BOOK) was my first earring taped right there after my ears were pierced! They were the plaster band used by the doctor. I remember running to the living room of my parents' house upon seeing this to check out my photograph with my mother. And yes, I had them on in that photo! But through the years of occasionally peeking and inspecting this baby book, one time it just got lost. Mother did not get upset but took it all as a matter of fact. Some things just get lost. Period. Well, that was what she said without qualm. As for me, I felt bad knowing that my link to my earliest history was forever gone (sigh).

Mothers’ scrapbooks had every little thing that would make them special. In my perspective as a little girl of 7 and even now as a middle-aged married woman, they remain to be special, very personal and brought a lot of history behind them as her personal extension of who she is and who she was.

These scrapbooks she fondly calls, as her “MEMORABILIA” never fails to captivate us~ her 8 children and unknown to her, at an early age, she was teaching us the concept of creativity, posterity and sensibility. But I remember it quite vividly she said, "People with a lot of memorabilias speak a lot of their family origin, culture and life style." Looking back, I think she was absolutely right.

Another scrapbook of hers that elicits such significant memory was about the cartoon characters in the early 1950’s that featured Lil’ Abner, Nancy, Sluggo, Aunt Fritzi and Henry.

I remember as well about how well my mother spoke of her mother’s scrapbook and with them she had her Betty Boop collection of the early 1920’s. Now isn't that something?