Eniko's Playhouse

Scrapbooking a Friendship Album: Part 4

In my last several posts, I talked about the many aspects of friendship that were explored through my latest scrapbook design project. Topics such as "Joy", "Companionship", "Passion", "Spirit", "Nurture", and "Cultivate" have already been illustrated through various scrapbook layouts in the Friendship Album created for real estate agent Carol's milestone birthday. As I share a few more with you, notice how each friend is represented, not only by the poem, personal note, or photos they contributed, but by the title of each layout. I chose these words carefully, each meant to represent the personal connection the friend had to the "birthday girl".

This scrapbook layout represents "Gratitude" -using Webster's Pages beautiful papers and journaling blocks:                                         (click on images to enlarge)

The photos used in the layout below shows friends spending the early morning hours of New Year's Day with Carol on the glorious beaches of Martha's Vineyard...watching the sun rise as it brings with it new "Hope" for the coming year:

Another friend, sent me a trove of fabulous quotes that she said all reminded her of Carol, so I included as many of them as I could on these fabulous patterned scrapbook papers from Graphic 45's Fashionista Collection, and chose the title "Sisterhood":

Lastly, using papers from Webster's Pages again (Can you tell I love this company?), and the title "Splendor," I attempted to capture the sensuality described on the pages, represented by the rich colors, the quotes about seaside dwelling, and the photos of Carol's luscious soups, which she is famous for:

I hope you've enjoyed my Friendship Album series and that it inspired you to take a closer look at your own friendships and how you might describe them. How might you be described by your friends?

As always, I appreciate comments left on my blog, below -thank you.

Passing the torch of friendship, Enikö

 Visit my website -Enikö's Scrapbooks

Scrapbooking a Friendship Album: Part 2

Exploring the different aspects of friendship became the theme for a colorful Memory Book/ Friendship Album that a group of friends hired me to design for their girlfriend's milestone birthday. In my previous post, I shared two layouts titled "Friendship" and "Companionship" respectively.

These next two layout explore the joy and spirit of friendship and share a love-of-the-ocean theme and reflects the birthday-girl's joy of living on Martha's Vineyard Island...surrounded by water. This layout, contributed by Lowely, is titled "Joy" and her note reminisces about beach parties where Carol lead silly sing-a-longs to entertain the children:
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I always love using beach-themed scrapbooking paper for beach photographs, because I enjoy matching the horizon on the photos with the horizon on the background paper for a touch of whimsy.

The next layout celebrates friends sharing the joys of sailing. Louise displays a bowl in her kitchen that sports the verses of "The Owl and the Pussycat" which she says reminds her of Carol & her husband, George, so we worked that into her scrapbook pages:
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I titled the layout "Spirit" and made it fun and colorful. Webster's Pages makes some really beautiful patterned scrapbooking paper with different themes. These are from the "Seaside Retreat" collection and sport graphics of sea creatures and compasses among fruits and flowers...particularly appropriate since Louise owns a flower & party styling business, Flowers on the Vineyard. Louise's sentiment was slipped under a lovely printed sheet of vellum, also by Webster's Pages.

What is your favorite activity with friends? What word would you use to describe it as the title of a scrapbook layout?

Please comment below... Playing it forward, Enikö

 

Scrapbooking a Friendship Album

Scrapbooking for others has many different challenges than creating an album for ourselves. Even more challenging is when the client is not one, but a group of seven friends. After I was hired to design a Memory Book for a mile-stone birthday celebration, it was decided that it would be formatted like a photo-illustrated poetry book, with each friend contributing a song or a poem that reminded him/her of the birthday-girl, Carol. It was so interesting to discover what each friend contributed in the way of photos, memories, and verse and each contribution inspired me toward a different element of friendship.
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Some of Mary's favorite memories of Carol involved working together at the Agricultural Fair back-in-the-day. Her photos were colorful and reflected the joys of friendship, which I worked hard to capture on her layout. The 3-dimensional flowers mimicked the flowers that decorated their T-shirt stand, and inspired by the hand-made banner Mary is holding in the photo, I added a "Friendship" banner as a title. -It helped set the tone for the entire book. Mary's long, heartfelt letter to Carol was a little too personal for public viewing, so I tucked it into a bright envelope for Carol to read privately.

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Jaime has known Carol a very long time. They've worked together, traveled together and have been wonderfully supportive friends for many years. Jaime chose the Momma Rose song from "Gypsy" for her friend...you know, the one that goes, "Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're gonna go through it together." -So perfect for their relationship...so I titled her layout "Companionship" and used the colorful papers from Webster's Pages to capture the fun these great friends have shared for so many years. Jaime is quite a romantic and loves flowers, so I was sure to include plenty of floral embellishments.

You're going to have to wait a bit to see the rest of this lovely Friendship Album, but I promise to post again soon. What words describe friendship best for you? What characteristics do you cherish most in your friends?

I hope you'll leave a comment below if you enjoyed this post...thanks!

Sharing the love, Enikö  

I invite you visit my website: Enikö's Scrapbooks

Scrapbooking a Heritage Album: Part 9

The Final Chapter

So we've come to the final chapter of my 9-part series: Scrapbooking a Heritage Album. As I was nearing the end of the scrapbook, I was thinking about how to finish it in a way that would have the kind of impact that a journey of this magnitude deserves. It was then that I recalled a letter to the editor of the Milford Cabinet that the eldest of the Farkas siblings once wrote about the Christmas we spent sleeping on army cots in Austria, after we risked our lives to cross the dangerous communist-guarded Hungarian border as my father led his family of six to freedom. I acquired the letter and added it to my layout. It describes the brave determination of my parents to give their children a magical Christmas in the direst of situations, and was the perfect touch to my scrapbook, which would be my Christmas present to the family.

After printing the letter onto parchment paper and aging the edges with a little ink, I added an image of the Traiskirchen refugee camp where the event took place. To the opposite side of the double-page layout , I added a montage of photos of many lavish Christmases we enjoyed in America in contrast to the poverty-stricken refugee camp Christmas. (I love the little journaling block: "Gratitude is the memory of the heart.")

 

I am including the contents of the letter here, for those that are interested. The story of Christmas 1956 as seen through the eyes of the ten-year-old "older" brother is quite moving.

Christmas 1956 ~by Attila Farkas

"Four small figures crunched through the frozen ruts on the empty dirt path running between the barracks of the abandoned U.S. military base on the outskirts of Traiskirchen, Austria. On that cold gray evening of December 24, 1956 the old base was used as a concentration camp for Hungarian refugees of the October 23rd uprising ~brutally crushed by Russian tanks.

The nine year-old boy on the right was tugging at the hand of his five year-old sister, who in turn, was dragging a two year-old with her other hand. Clutching the left hand of the tiny girl, a ten year-old boy shuffled…lost in thought. A year ago Christmas was different. A year ago, the infant was asleep in her warm crib, and the older kids were bursting through the door followed by their loving grand-parents, who conveniently had taken them for a long walk, leaving ample time for the angelic messenger from the Christ Child to deliver the Christmas tree and the gifts under it. The two boys understood that on that bleak day, they were fulfilling the task of the now distant grandparents. ~But why? Certainly they could not expect presents. After all, their parents had no money in this strange land. They fled their home in Budapest with only belongings that could be carried on their backs. The ten year-old knew that this year, in conformance to the last two hellish months, there was going to be no Christmas.

The whimpering of the two year-old jarred his memory to the recent past. A month ago, her cries nearly resulted in tragedy. With a group of strangers, they were crossing the notorious iron curtain under the cover of night. A local resident cautioned them to be absolutely quiet because during the previous day, tanks were seen patrolling the field that they were about to cross. The baby, sleeping in her father’s arms, woke with a start and screamed her displeasure to the bleak country-side. The other members of the desperate group demanded that the family be left behind, so as not to jeopardize the safety of the rest. The parents ordered the older children to continue with the strangers, while they stayed behind with the screaming baby. For a desperate hour, the three children were totally alone…no country, no home, no parents. Finally, perhaps the hundredth glance back revealed familiar shadows, closing from behind.

The boy clutched the tiny hand harder.

They turned under the bare light bulb over the faded door to the barrack and hurried up the unpainted steps. He needed to be reassured that their parents were still there. They scurried by the rows of army cots and pushed through the hanging blanket that separated their home from this room of a dozen families. There, on the table between the crowded cots, stood a Christmas tree.

It wasn’t much of a tree…perhaps a dozen fir boughs wired to a broken broom handle, decorated with beads made from balls rolled from foil, and a candle cut into small segments. They stood transfixed. The adults joined them. Haltingly at first, the ancient folk song rose from the little circle. The carols grew louder with each stanza as the revelation strengthened: There will always be Christmas."

 

The journaling block on the lower right of the montage page reads:

"Of course there would be many more Christmases for the Farkas family, and many more Christmas trees... But none would compete with the memory of that special little tree of hope from the Christmas of 1956."

The final page of the Heritage Album shows the family many years later, on the 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration of Edith and Peter Farkas...we see the four siblings, now all grown-up, and we meet the grandchildren. The life that began with the chance meeting of a farmboy-turned-engineer and a pretty city-girl from Budapest, a life that endured many painful decisions and multiple hardships, has a happy ending indeed.

From a scrapbooking layout point of you, please note thet the muted colors used in the previous scrapbook pages and the sepia tones of the old photographs now give way to a burst of color, symbolizing the joy that the family now experiences.The sentiment on the upper right-hand side of the page is so appropriate: "Live the life you have imagined."

And so the Farkas family heritage goes on...as the grandchildren grow up and start families of their own. At the writing of this post, sadly Edith Farkas has left us, but Peter celebrated his 89th birthday this past June, as handsome as ever and happy to share a kiss with his three-year-old great-grandson, Rigel.

I hope I've inspired you to capture your own family's history in a scrapbook or a family Heritage Album, and thank you for allowing me to share my story with you.

Sharing the love, Enikö

A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday: Part 8

Ah...Martha's Vineyard Summers...

When I scrapbooked photos of my friend Jaime's legendary beach parties for her Memory Book, I wanted to capture the essence of life by the ocean. We are immensely lucky to live only moments from beautiful beaches and we take every opportunity we can to gather on them. I had some great paper that had photographic images of a Cape Cod-style sandy beach with weathered fencing that was perfect for the occasion. (When I stiched the pages of my double-page layout together in photoshop, I somehow got the intensity of the colors wrong and the color of the sand and sky don't match up here as well as they do in the actual layout.) I love the "Life's a Beach" sticker placed on the bottom of the layout -it actually has real sand and tiny shells attached to it, and adds a great touch.

Another challenge was to tell the story of 30 years of fabulous dress-up parties in just two scrapbook pages. I found a really cool-looking journaling block that was the perfect tool for anchoring the page. I listed all the titles of the crazy dress-up parties we attended through the years and then arranged the photos as if they had been randomly dropped across the two pages. I used a dark floral printed paper thatdid not distract the eye from the photos as a background. This "random" arrangement, together with clever cropping, enabled me to fit 18 photos on my layout! Here's a close-up of the journaling block:

Jaime's scrapbook also included layouts devoted to her family, her catering company, her passion for sailing, and some humorous party shots that are too personal for public posting. One of my favorite layouts is devoted to the men in her life, past and present. But perhaps my favorite page is the final one, in which a very young and very tanned Jaime leans on a balcony railing looking off in the distance as if looking ahead into the future:

I adhered a gorgeous die-cut paper from Webster's Pages to a black background with the beautiful photo of Jaime front and center. I added a simple title: "Celebrate Life" and a couple of silk flowers which completed the story of Jaime perfectly, and offered a fitting closing page to her Memory Book.

On that note, I will end my 8-part series on "A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday". I hope you have found some inspiration and perhaps a little joy in these pages. I will close with a photo of Jaime's birthday cake -an amazing Gingerbread Cake baked by Martha, who appears in an earlier post about Jaime's TGIF girlfriends. The tradition in our circle is that everyone present is invited to place a ring on one of the birthday-girl's lit candles while making a wish, and as the candles are blown out, all the girlfriends' wishes will also come true.

Incidentally, the recipe for this truely delicious ginger cake may be found in Susan Branches 2011 Calendar available through her website and in stores now...a great Holiday gift idea!

 

A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday: Part 7

A cheerful layout designed with lovely patterned papers from Webster's Pages -this one is the story about my 30-year friendship with Jaime. It's not easy condensing thirty years into a double-page scrapbook layout, but I chose some of my favorite photos and shared events and ignored the fact that the quality or lighting was not always ideal. It is the essence of the enduring friendship that is captured -highlighted by simple hand-written journaling intended to remind Jaime of the moments we've shared through the years.

On this closer view of the right-hand page, the subtle message printed on the upper right: "Live the life you have imagined" is clearly visible...and very appropriate for Jaime, who inspires us all to reach higher in our lives. The 3-dimensional flower sticker just above the journaling on the upper left is from another company altogether, but fit in beautifully with the Webster paper.

I cropped the photo of me sitting on the beach with my two young sons into a circle, which not only draws the eye to it, but allows for an interesting placement on the page.

Incidentally, if you don't already own a copy of out dear friend Margot Datz's book: A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids, you should pick up a copy. You'll find some really profound woman-to-woman advice and exquisite illustrations. The photo on the lower right was taken at Margot's book signing, which Jaime also attended, at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven before the tragic fire destroyed the original building.

I hope this post has inspired you in some way...perhaps to honor a valued friendship in a special way.

A Memory Book for a 60th Birthday: Part 5

If you haven't already discovered the truly delightful printed cardstocks from Webster's Pages, you must logon to their website at http://www.websterspages.com - breathtaking! I am thrilled to introduce this fabulous paper company to you in this post. I stumbled upon these treasures at the 2010 Creative Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention. I was so overwhelmed with the creativity and the sheer beauty of these papers that I could hardly contain myself and couldn't wait to work (play) with them.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, paper selection was extremely important for Jaime's Memory Book project, since I was so pressed for time. The right paper would help me tell the story of each of her girlfriends more efficiently and more completely.

To scrapbook our dear friend Margot Datz, I needed to find something truely special. Margot is a masterful artist, illustrator, author, muralist -and she is a brilliant hostess. Her lucky friends marvel at her colorful, creative summer dinners which she hosts on her magical porch lit with hanging lanterns and flickering candles which highlight the colored glassware and the festive tablesettings.  I chose a cheerful pair of coordinating papers from the Garden Gala Collection by Brandin O'Neill of Webster's Pages, which seemed to capture the essence of Margot's entertaining style.

The colorful lanterns, parasol, birds, and flowers actually feel like dinners feel on Margot's porch. Looking more closely, Margot's name on the upper left-hand corner leads the eye around early photos of this special friendship: Jaime acting as Margot's birthing coach, attending to her at her baby shower, holding her new baby at the beach.

You'll notice that the added embellishments are minimal...I added a few paper flowers and a couple of appropriate phrases (stickers) over the photos. What I did that makes a huge difference, is the matting of the photos in a contrasting cardstock. The matting not only makes the photos pop, but they enhance the look of the overlapping -an important element when it is desirable to include multiple photos on the layout. For the right side of the double-page spread, I continued this trend, but with a different color of matting.

I also highlighted the upper-right photo by placing a gilded frame around it. I added a few stickers (also from Webster's Pages) and added a personal message from Margot to Jaime on the inked journaling block from K&Company. If you look closely, you'll notice the word "HAPPINESS" imprinted on the paper in the lower left. -Sometimes it's these subtle messages -already a part of a great paper's design- that helps the designer tell the story without having to alter it too much.

I also used Webster's Pages from the same Garden Gala Collection for a couple of other girlfriend layouts. Martha Yukovitch is a light-hearted, fun-filled and extremely talented woman and these papers with bright and lively flowers fit her bubbly personality.

The layout of the left page is designed to create order by placing the photos equal distance from each other -in contrast to the free-form layout of the right page.

Again, a couple of strategically placed stickers and a few paper flowers complete the page. It is apparent that I was mindful of the colors of the photos as I paired them with the paper. The blue of Martha's playful gown is repeated in the blue of the flowers on both sides of the layout, pulling them together. The dark red of the flowers on the left page is repeated on the "Party Time" sticker as well as on Martha's name on the opposite page.

This page was challenging because Martha and her husband, Gerry, provided me with the fabulous dialogue bubbles as well as the wonderful journaling card, and my design had to accomadate the tricky size restrictions of the pieces and still work with the rest of the layout. I framed the photo and matted the journaling card, then softened the corners with a pretty corner punch by Martha Stewart.

I hope you have enjoyed post and are as excited about the joys of using beautiful patterned papers in your scrapbook designs as I am. Cherish your memories and enjoy Websters Pages and all its possibilities!

To learn more about Margot's amazing work, visit her at:

http://www.margotdatz.com