Hello Sweet Bloggers! Shannon G here, checking in from Midwestern Illinois…

When I leaf through my scrapbooks I love seeing ALL the people who have came (and sometimes went) into my life.

I have never been the type of person who only scraps the people who live at my house.  I scrap anything I can get my hands on.  I have countless pages of my kids friends.  My nieces and nephews are often the stars of my pages.  I also love to scrap my sisters and my friends.

I remember when I first started scrapbooking I would look at the pretty girl kits and think…”As pretty as they are I will never have any use for them”…until I started to realize I have plenty of amazing girls in my life.  I was so happy to be able to use all that pink…and flowers…*sigh*.

My niece Violet is often my girl of choice to photograph, I have many pages of her just being her, I often try and put a cute quote or jot down a quick memory-it doesn’t matter to me if the memory has no association (besides the fact that is her) with the actual photograph.  I have printed out her pages and she adds them to an 8X8 album and loves looking at it.  She also loves reading the little blurbs I add to most pages, even if it is just a few words, she enjoys them.  Seeing the look on her face and hearing her “thank you Aunt Shannon” makes me know that my time is appreciated.

Both of my big boys also have had serious relationships, so those girls have made their way into my scrapping.  Alissa and Olivia both have been presented with 8X8 albums of their time in our family.  They both oooohhh’d and awwwwee’d over their albums and I know that no matter where they end up in life, having the special memories of their time with my sons in book form will always be special to them.

I thought I would share a few of my favorite non-family LO’s…just to inspire you to step outside the box and scrap the people in your life who may or may not be permanent editions.

This LO of my friend Jackie and her little Issac makes me smile from ear to ear, I gave it to her as gift after I took baby pictures of Issac, she loves it so much that it is framed in Issac’s nursery. I used a retired kit by Heather called Love Me Do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of my all time favorite LO’s…It is my sister and my nephew-I used Meg’s retired collab with Susan, Wings and Roots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just love this page I did of my oldest son’s girlfriend Alissa-She has it framed on the wall of her college dorm. I used Jenn’s Let Your Light Shine kit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Realizing that I don’t have to just stick to the people in my family has really made my creativity blossom, it has given me a reason to scrap pink (LOVE) and also has given me the opportunity to share my talent and memories with some of the people I love most in this world…even if they don’t live here!

Until the next time-Keep scrapping…for any reason-all of your memories will be appreciated by anyone YOU choose to scrap about.