In 2007 my sister and her husband made a life changing decision to emigrate to Australia and when I visited her in 2008, I took her a present; a yellow leather bound scrapbook. At that time she enjoyed writing dreams and thoughts as a way of clearing her racing mind and I thought the book would be a nice keepsake. During my visit, I saw how popular scrapbooking was in Australia as a decorative paper craft rather than just storage for photos and I was inspired.
I bought myself a pink leather bound photo album for my own writing and started to create decorated pages along side poems. I wrote about the kids as they were growing. I wrote about the students I met and their stories as asylum seekers. I wrote about family times and holidays. It took years to complete and became a standing joke in the family. If there's a fire......
I loved creating it. Each page had a different theme but really I had no clue what I was doing, but the real benefit was, it didn't matter. I was just enjoying the process and years later with platforms like Pinterest there were so many ideas to try, so I made 'squash books' full of decoration and little messages for family weddings and big birthdays. Paper craft became my joy.
I have since created other scrap books and developed abilities with paper crafts to make personalised wedding gifts for family and friends. It's a joyful thing to do, and I recommend it to anyone.
You can see my 'art journey' on the Art page of this website.