Share your first scrapping experience

Mine was finding 2Peas! I had never heard of or seen scrapbooking in the more modern, creative sense: I had only seen CM-style scrapping advertised in non-scrapping magazines and the kinds of pages my MIL makes. So when someone in an online parenting group shared a link to her layout posted in the 2Peas gallery, I was stunned! Paper! Really cute 3D stickers! Distressing! This was at the very end of 2003, around November. That Christmas, a month later, I received scrapbooking supplies for gifts from my mom, sister, and DH. I made my first page that January (2004) and have been hooked ever since!

I kept scrapbooks since I was a kid in the 1970's. But the old school kind where you pasted photos and memorabilia onto plain pages in a scrapbook album. 

I don't know exactly how I learned about artsy-craftsy scrapbooking, except that I discovered it around '00 or '01. Probably saw a magazine or saw something online. 

My senior year of high school (83) we could buy a memory book. it had pages for different events of your year. I didn't reconnect until someone introduced me to Creative Memories in 1998.

I was invited to a Creative Memories home party by a friend. I was reluctant to go because I hate home parties. I immediately fell in love with the scrapbooking idea but soon left CM far behind and followed my own style.

Love this!!!

I think it was late 2002 or early 2003 and my friend asked me to go to a scrapbook class at the LSS. It was a store that was a few blocks from where she lived (I was an hour away). I didn't know exactly what she was talking about but I said yes I'd go. She told me to bring pictures.

After the class I remember looking at the ladies who were occupying the other tables. They had tons of supplies and were making elaborate (what I thought at the time) pages.  They were so passionate about their pages. I clearly remember saying to my friend, "The class was fun but I'll NEVER be like those ladies. They have so much stuff." Twelve years later I'm now the poster child for supply hoarding and I love the hobby now more than ever! I wish I could eat my words because they have come back to haunt me!

I was a stamper before I ever heard of scrapbooking. My very first experience was a CMC that came and gave a "free" demonstration to our stamp club sometime in the early 1990's or so--except that we had to pay $5 for the supplies which were nothing to write home about. I wasn't impressed AT ALL. She told us to bring 5-7 photos from an event to make a page with, and I just remember sitting there not wanting to cut the photos into ovals and hearts, LOL.

Fast forward to about 1998, and by then I had my own stamp store and was looking for ways to branch out into other papercrafts. Provo Craft was just starting to come out with their cutesy patterned papers (in letter size, of course) and some stickers and diecuts. I liked that the patterns papers, diecuts and punch art also transitioned nicely into card making. It didn't take long before scrapbooking overtook the store and stamping took a back seat.

For me personally though, what sold me on scrapbooking was that it was something I could do that was creative, fun and just for ME and I liked that. Virtually every stamping project I ever made was either a card or gift for somebody else and nothing was ever anything I ever made to keep.

Mine was in 1997 when my girls were 3 years old. I went to my first CM party, and I had NO idea what I was doing. I kept asking the CM Rep questions and asking for help. She was rude to me from the get go. I had a very bad first experience, and I never went to another CM party ever. I am surprised I stuck with it because my first experience was not a good one. I guess she didn't want to make any sales!

In 1996, when I was a sahm with my one year old, I saw an episode of the Aleens Craft Show on TV. They talked so bit about scrapbooking, and I thought hmmmm, that sounds interesting. I sent away for the info that they mentioned but didn't do anything with it. In Oct. of 1997 a friend mentioned that she had gone to a CM party, and bought a ton of stuff. She was raising a granddaughter who was the same age as my son. I took a look at her stuff, made a trip to Hobby Lobby for some basics (unfortunately that included decorative edge scissors, but hey, I own that first three ring 8 1/2 x 11 book!), and from then I was hooked. I still scrap a bit, and want to find time to do more.

Living in AR, it was a long time before I actually experienced a scrapbook store. In about 2000, while visiting family in Utah, I was able to go to three big stores, including Pebbles in My Pocket, in Orem I believe. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! But we did eventually get some good LSS in my area, in fact there is still a small, but nicely run store about 10 miles away.

  My SIL had a CM party. (2000)  Already kind of knew I didn't like the style of cutting pictures into shapes and slapping sticker down.  Then I went to local craft/scrapbook store and they were having crops.  Thought hmmm.... signed up, went by myself to check it out and hooked ever since.  

Met a group of girls I still hang with (and scrap) there. One of those besties, had been doing it a while already and was ahead of the curve.  Her page was looking awesome and I remember being somehow comfortable enough with her to jokingly say to her something like, " your pages are so GOOD! aren't you the little biotch."  Why the heck I'd say that to someone I just met, I don't know.  But it worked.  We are close to this day. And she went home and told her hubby, "I think I made a friend tonight.  This one girl that called me a b!tch."  He was  .  But hey, it worked.

I had a scrapbook in high school, the black page kind with photo corners to hold things.

Around the time we were going to have our first grandchild, a niece asked for an Archiver's gift card for Christmas. I thought Archiver's sold photo albums and the like! I walked in and it was like the angels began to sing

I started buying a few things and a post bound album. My first pages were about a baby shower for DDIL.

My mother kept old fashioned scrapbooks and so did I from my earliest years.  In fact, I now incorporate the stuff I kept in those scrapbooks into my pages - I use lots of memorabilia.

I had seen someone's CM album at a craft show but there was no way I could afford those products for all my photos.  So I saw a scrapbook kit in KMart and asked my husband for it for Christmas 1998.  There were no scrapbook stores around yet and the craft store had nothing yet.

I had no idea what I was doing.  The kit came with a flimsy white chipboard album, about 10 white papers, 4 crappy colored markers, a shape template, a pair of deco scissors and some photo squares.  

There were no page protectors, no extra papers, and no directions.  I got right into it and quickly realized that I was just making a mess.  I mean, I had only ever seen the one scrapbook at the craft show and I remembered that she had a picture cut in a circle with journalling around the picture and that was about all I could remember.

The beginning of scrapbooking was a process of trial and error, with me pretty much starting over whenever new products came on the market. It was when I found a Memory Makers magazine in the store that I began to see what I was supposed to be doing.  At that time all layouts were pretty much cardstock and sticker sneeze with wonky cropping in strange shapes.

Everything I scrapped in my first 5 years of scrapping has  been completely redone, and sometimes redone twice.

It was 1997. My DS was an infant at the time. I took a class through our community education program. It was advertised as a class to organize your photos. The ad said something to the affect of, "are your pictures in shoeboxes and you do not know what to do?". I'm like, " Heck yeah!". So when I arrived at my first class and saw paper, scissors and glue I was all over that!  The very next day I went to my local JoAnn's and saw my first scrapbooking magazine, bought it and was hooked ever since. 

It was probably 1998 and I saw in our adult night school brochure a one-night class by a CM person to learn how to make a scrapbook page. I brought a friend, the request 5-7 photos. I was hooked - even after I cut pictures of my 40th birthday party into funky shapes, and "enhanced" them with triangles. About the same time, a twin-mom friend had gone to a CM party and thought it would be a good activity for our club to scrap pictures of the 20 years of our club. She ended up being a CM demonstrator; I was definitely her best customer!!

My mom had the old-fashioned style of scrapbooks from her HS days; guess I got the "hold on to stuff forever" gene from her!