My First Layout and Other Nostalgia...

I learned (or should I say re-learned) a valuable lesson this week: - Always create to satisfy your own heart. Trying to create something for someone else's approval just plain doesn't work, and it's a sure way to come up with a bad case of artist's block. This is what happened to me this past week and it's been driving me crazy. Aargh.

Artist's block is something that happens to me every so often and each time it takes me awhile to come back to the same conclusion I noted above. I'm trying too hard. Once I realize that and let go I'm free again. It's getting to the point of realization that is sometimes the hard part. Each time I get a little better at it though, so that's progress, right?

I was reflecting on all this tonight and it made me think about my first scrapbooks. I've loved keeping scrapbooks since I was a kid, and back then I never gave much thought to how they looked. I just wanted to have a place to keep my memories. I love to go back and look at them. Here's a picture of my very first page in my very first scrapbook. It was 1971...

I think it's so funny that I felt the need to keep that article from my teeny bop magazine about David Cassidy's gall bladder surgery. I think it was in "Tiger Beat." Anyone remember that magazine? HA! And on the other page is my fifth grade class photo. Here's a closeup...

I'm the one in the second row, fifth from the left, with my eyes closed. Ha. You can see it a little better if you click on the image.

The other thing I always did as a kid was keep a bulletin board with poems, doodles, magazine clippings, song lyrics and anything else that was inspiring me at the time. When I moved out I took the stuff that was on that bulletin board and put it in this box...
Now it's like a treasure box full of memories. I'm so glad I have it.

How about you? Do you have scrapbooks or other memorabilia that you kept as a kid? Where do you keep it now?

I'm inspired now. I'm off to play in my art journal. Have a wonderful Thursday my friends and I will be back tomorrow with another update!