Water Boy

Here's one from the archives for you!  You can tell that I even photographed a while back because there was sun light on that there slate paving.  These days it is a much darker shade of grey and constantly wet!

This layout was completed at Scrap-a-Mia with the lovely Kirsty Wiseman and involves flaps!  You are welcome :-)

I had a range of photos with me with no specific plan but actually the papers that Kirsty had chosen worked really well with a random set of pictures that I ended up putting together about Louis's love of water.His first swimming lesson on the left and dancing with his shadow on the beach on the right.  He was 4 months old and 3 years old respectively.

And then nearly 4 in the final flap playing with the fountains at the local lido.  Isn't that turquoise just perfect! The papers have areas that are embossed with gold and other areas that are flocked.  We did enjoy a few moments of just stroking these papers as I seem to recall.  I was really new to scrapbooking then but I immediately felt a friendship to Kirsty because of this one fact alone!

 I'd read a few of her blog posts since I knew that I would be taking her class so I knew a little bit about her style and her daughter with gorgeous curly hair who seemed different to other children.  I had horrific PMT at the time of the class and she opened by explaining that this layout would leave space for lots of journalling if we wanted it.  She didn't normally journal much but in the case of her example layout she'd had plenty to say about a particularly special friendship that her daughter had.

I learned that Ellie had various special needs with no clear diagnosis and that "normal" friendships were something very rare for her.  Kirsty was visibly choked at recalling these special photos and I had to leave the class to go and have a good blub in the toilets.  Every day is out of the ordinary for parents like Kirsty and yet I had 2 healthy "normal" (I hate that word) children and yet I struggled with the most mundane of things.  At the time I didn't know just how much scrapbooking would help me deal with these feelings or that 4 years later I would be STILL be dealing with them.

I think I'll come back to this topic, it needs to be opened up.  That was going to be what this blog was all about but I found that I just didn't want to harp on about it.  That's not reaching out to people in the same boat though and that's not helping anyone.  I don't want my blog to become a sad place but I do want to hold my hand out to other people who might be helped by crafting.

I'm happy to say that in just a few weeks I will be saying hello to Kirsty again in real life for a girly weekend with other crafters.  THAT sort of thing really helps :-))

Bye for now
xx