Scrapbook Time

When given the chance over the last couple of months, I've hidden out upstairs and created. Little gifts for friends mainly.

If I had to pick one word to describe this fall season I think it would be "unbelievable." I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off the phone with various people and been at a loss for words and found myself just shaking my head from side to side saying, "No way." Many, many friends have been going through really, really tough stuff ... which has deeply saddened me on so many levels.

Now before you get all depressed on me, I must say that while these hardships have been unbelievable and overwhelming, God has shown up and done some big-time miracles. So to see God's hand in my friends' lives has truly been beautiful.

All that to say, in order to take care of my own soul, in my down time I've needed to create. I think for therapy's sake really. I get lost when creating. Mixing colours and textures and pictures and shapes. I love it and wish that I could somehow get paid to scrapbook.

But in the meantime, I scrapbook to give. And record. And share. And lock away the details that would otherwise get lost in time.

When Julie took these pictures for my friend Alice, I knew that I had to make a scrapbook for her girls. Many tears were shed as I created these pages out of Julie's pictures for Alice. Felt good to do something.

Here are just a few samples of the pages.

I haven't really figured out a good way to take pictures of my scrapbook pages where you can actually read the journaling stuff, but maybe someday I'll figure it out.

In the meantime, you get the jist ....

My hope is that some day down the road, Lucy and Elaine will look through this book and be able to see, in no uncertain terms, the deep love their Manga had for them. Can't you just see it in Manga's smile and eyes?

{And if you haven't read about Alice and her mom, and are wondering what this post is all about, you can get the background info at this or this old post.}