A New Favourite

This is one of my latest pages and it has jumped to the top of my favourites list. There are so many reasons why this is my new favourite page, but I'll just give you the run down on the top 5.

1. I love the paper. The School Spirit line by Crate Paper is fabulous. It has a lot of colour and interest without being girly--which is important to me because almost all my pages are about my boys. I thought the geometric shapes in the background paper were a perfect fit with the science theme of the page.

2. A great title. I struggled with what title to use on this page. Originally, I thought I'd use puffy brown American Crafts Thickers to spell out "Science Centre" or "Little Explorers", but as luck would have it, I'm down to the last q's, x's and z's of that particular set.

Then I thought I'd just cut out a title from brown cardstock on my Silhouette when I had the time, but after the page sat around for a couple of weeks (I still have to buy a new cutting mat) I knew I had to come up with something else for the title or this page was going to languish for years. (Yes, I do have pages that need die cut titles from years ago waiting for me to do a massive die cut session one day.)

Finally, a few days ago, I realised my darling husband has a colour printer and I could just print something out. That's when I went to the Science Centre website to check out their logo. I found a logo for Kidspark, which is where all the photos are from and the journaling is about. Voila! Perfect title. I just had to print it out, trim it down, ink the edges, mount on brown cardstock and adhere with pop dots. I love the way it fits perfectly onto the page.

3. Glazed brads. I'm not normally a fan of brads, but I love glazed brads and I couldn't resist stocking up on these Basic Grey glazed brads when I saw them deeply discounted from Ninabrook Designs. Unlike regular brads, which just look like nail heads to me, glazed brads usually have a pattern, rim and epoxy coating. You'll often see glazed brads in packs to co-ordinate with a paper line. Even though I didn't have the co-ordinating papers, I loved these brads and think they fit in well with the colours on this page and add a bit of a whimsical touch. I even added a glazed brad to dress up the title, replacing the purple dot in the "i" with a brad.

4. This page documents a tradition. As a family, we love doing things together and visiting places like the Science Centre and the ROM. I have a lot of pages about these kinds of trips. But for me, and I hope for my children too, going to the Science Centre on the Christmas Break has become an important tradition. After all the Christmas hullabaloo, we take some time for ourselves, to connect as a family doing something everyone enjoys. I documented my feelings about our annual trip in the journaling and I hope when my boys are older they'll look back on these family trips as fondly as I do.

5. This page reconnected me with my old Smith Corona. I have always loved typing. I don't even mind the data entry work I do as an editor because I just love pounding away on a keyboard. (Perhaps if I had any musical inclination, I'd be a pianist.) My old typewriter was retired years ago because I had no use for it once my computer came along. But for whatever reason, I couldn't bear to part with it. It stayed in storage for years and has evaded the occasional mass clean out--including one just this spring that involved Kevin digging out all our old electronics for recycling. I saw him heading out with my old SC and saved it from the scrap pile just in time.

I'm not sure why I did that, because at the time I didn't even know if it worked or that I could purchase typewriter cartridges at Staples. But it went back into my closet all the same. Then this past December, browsing at Staples for something else, I saw a little section devoted to old technology, and there they were: typewriter cartridges. I didn't buy one at the time because I wasn't sure which cartridge my typewriter would take, but Kevin went back a few weeks later and picked one up for me.

That very night, I took SC out of the closet, set it up on my kitchen table and plugged it in. The hum of its motor was like a forgotten lullaby. I sat down, inserted some paper and typed out the journaling for my scrapbook page. It just took a few minutes, but using my old typewriter brought back a flood of memories of all the essays, themes, short stories, poems, resumes and letters I'd written using this old thing.

It sparked my old love for writing, and even though I'm not going to make any promises, I've had some more interesting ideas for a twist in my waiting-to-be-written novel.