Summer Scraps (An Album)
Monday, June 9, 2008 at 09:24AM Introduction to Summer Scraps
For me, as a sometimes journaler, often scrapbooker, and always muser - I’ve found recently that if I accept a challenge to accomplish something creative over a period of time, I end up actually creating a large set of something (normally a scrapbook album) I can be proud of. Without the challenge of such a prompt, I tend to let the world, it’s own demands, and that of anything else possible - override my desire to simply create, and capture my and my family’s memories. Often, in this hectic world, I seem to need a set prompt to get my creative juices going.
I’ve found this with taking several online classes over the last few years. There is one of Shimelle Laine’s - to journal your Christmas, for a 37 day period - which has now allowed me to create three very large Christmas albums over the last three years. Another, which ran for exactly 28 days, proved enough of a push to see me creating all kinds of projects, and certainly photography, for that succinct period of time. Big Picture Scrapbooking also does them, and of course - many scrapbooking boards and creative team blogs spend copious time and effort in providing these types of challenges over the cycle of a year.
Let’s re-emphasise here - doing these types of distinct themed challenges seems to work for me, in both putting thought to what photos I’m taking, and what layouts I am documenting for my own family.
Unfortunately for me, these types of things appear normally over a period of time when it’s winter (in the northern hemisphere), there is a major holiday season, and lots of events to capture. Which left me, like possibly other scrapbookers, looking around on how to seize the longer days of our summers. Summer journaling is full of all sorts of defined events and visualisations, feelings and temperatures. The summer season includes everything from outdoor pursuits, our vacations or holidays abroad (or internally), and the long summer school holidays for our children (and teachers and school-associated workers like I am). I very much celebrate the laziness of some of those days, but often struggle to think how I might continue to capture them, year on year.
This, then, is my way of capturing my summer. I am setting myself with particular missions to scrap or journal my summer. I have a pre-defined time of a full five months (late Spring, to the return to school for many of our family members) and all in between. It’s a huge time period, but one which can easily slip through our fingers as barbecue, parties, beach trips and the like take over our everyday lives. I will set myself a new task to think about every second day.
Timings and Format
These ideas and thoughts may not necessarily be accomplished on that exact day of setting the task - and they may not be a scrapbook layout, or a visual journal entry. They can be anything I want. For my first year, as I try this out - I intend creating each as a mini album called simply Summer Scraps - scraps of things which happened on that summer day. My format will be digital, and 8x8 inches, but I might just print those out, and add in some altered imagery, 3D elements, newspaper cuttings or brochures. Oh, but there will be photography assignments also - and challenges for myself to keep my creative juices flowing.
Mini albums, tag albums, even ATC Cards for a tiny selection with perhaps one photo - the format choice is all yours (and mine).
How will this Work?
Below you will find an index to all of the challenges. I’m not posting them day by day, because your local beach trip may well come before I would post this, and the ordering of your life doesn’t work in a nice neat chronological line like a blog entry, lol.
As I do do the challenges for my own Summer Scraps album, I will naturally log these up here, including photographs and layouts created. Each entry will also include additional discussion over the theme captured, as I need to research them. For instance, I see the third challenge below is towards Summer Weather. I happen to know that there are some excellent weather kits out there on the net for digital scrapbookers - which I am - so I might just point you to those when doing this challenge for myself.
The index below may be changed as I change my own topics to suit. That’s how it should be, for each year surely? Every year my family goes on a holiday away from the house - but not always away overseas, so this type of challenge will change with my circumstances. And we don’t camp. But others do, so the challenges should be general enough to have meaning for my family despite what year we may find ourselves in.
Finally, if I do complete a challenge topic, I’ll link to the blog entry to the images and discussion on the index below. Simple as that.
Welcome to my summer scraps. Feel free to join in, and link to your creations too. And have a lovely summer!
The Summer Scraps Index
As each of the following are accomplished as either a photograph, or more hopefully, a full layout, I will put up a separate blog entry introducing this, and of course post them to the gallery. Meanwhile, here are the challenges.
01 Title Page - An album needs a title page, and so does mine. Call it whatever you want - mine is going to be Summer Scraps. I would tend to do this page at the end of the summer, should I want to
02 Dedication Page - Dedicate the summer album to summer (and your family). Perhaps a summer poem, or general text towards what you look forward to, or what you particularly enjoyed (if completed when looking back).
03 Summer Weather - rain, sunshine, gloomy forecasts (a running joke that’s not funny in the U.K.) and hot days in late spring. Tanning, or not?
04 Summer Food - there’s something very different about summer food from the rest of the year. Celebrate slightly burnt bangers, crisp leafy salads and strawberries and cream with me.
05 BBQs - who doesn’t? Probably somebody. But I’m constantly asked by people in March or April whether we’ve had our first family BBQ yet? For some reason, Barbecues summarise summer expectations in a nutshell.
06 Working through the Summer - yes, unless you happen to be a school teacher or the like, most of us have to work in sweaty workplaces during the summertime. And even school workers have work to do during the long school breaks.
07 Beaches - Most of us like to get to the seaside at some point, even if it means travelling for many miles, or holidaying there. I love the sea air, but also don’t particularly enjoy swimming in sea water. How does your family enjoy a beach?
08 Summer Holidays / Vacations - getting away from home. You’ll probably have enough material from your long-awaited holiday /trip / vacation for several layouts, but spare one or two for your special summer scraps album also.
09 Travel - Summer time, holidays, even picnic expeditions - they all involve travel of some sort - even if it’s getting out those bicycles and dusting them off from their winter recluse. What special summer travel arrangements are involved in the season for your family?
10 School Holidays - Not all of summer time is about school holidays. In fact, here in England, the kids don’t break for their summer holidays until mid July normally, leaving all of June and half of July with them sweltering in hot classrooms (sometimes - see weather) champing at the bit for some freedom. How are school holidays spent for your family? Are there childcare arrangements, special activities, long free days of adventure?
11 Going Back to School - lately here in the UK, September has held some lovely hot Indian summers, and it’s almost been a pity to send the kids back to school that month. But Back to School they do go, with all those First Day at School photos and feelings to capture - new uniforms, or school lunch boxes, new teachers, new classmates possibly.
12 The Great Outdoors - whether you are a regular camping family, fishing family, picnicing family or simply enjoy the local environment around you, summer time has a lot to offer from the great outdoors. Not to mention summer sports - whether you are part of a local sports team, or do particular sports when off on holiday / vacation. Many people, for instance, when holidaying at beachside resorts, take up scuba diving, or sailboarding, golf or horse-back riding amongst so many others. This is a huge topic, and well worth quite a few photographs and layouts.
13 Family and Friends Get Togethers - summer time was made for these, often set outdoors too. BBQs, picnics, national celebrations (holidays) like July 4th, the summer family weddings you may be invited to. Sometimes summertime get-togethers are the first time you’ve seen Great Aunt Martha for a year. Do you have to travel far? Stay overnight? Have you bought some special clothes for the event? Do you bring your own? Are there special family traditions involved?
14 Water and Pools - swimming, boating, splashing, sploshing. At the beach, the river, a local lake, or swimming pool. Even just a sprinkler in your garden, or paddling pool the kids use. Who doesn’t love the chance to get wet - even if, like me, it involves exposing cellulite you’re rather concerned about.
15 The Landscape Around You - if you haven’t captured this already in The Great Outdoors theme, here’s your chance. Here where I live, summer time brings a village surrounded by farming land, strawberry fields, and much later - hay harvesting in late summer.
16 Indian Summer / Late Summer - do you have one? What’s the difference in seasons. Late summers also provide some lovely photographic opportunities, with late afternoon glowing sun providing a warm light for people and landscape photos. And of course - there’s all the late summer flowers like Sunflowers.
17 Anticipation - Awaiting Summer - this might be a separate page, of if doing your album dedication early, incorporate those feelings. See my BBQ entry above in the index also. Here in England the BBQ question shows great anticipation for summer.
18 Summer Evenings - do you spend these outside? Do you outfit your garden or community differently for summer evenings (ie mosquito candles, bug lights, garden lights). Do longer summer evenings mean your children have later bed-times than in other seasons?
19 Midsummer Night’s Dream - summer solstice, the longest day. It’s coming very soon, actually, as I write this. Does this mean anything to you or your family? For me, it signifies that I should make the most of this quick summer as the days will start to draw in afterwards.
20 Summer Festivals & Carnivals - summertime wouldn’t be complete without the many local and national festivals and carnivals put on, from music festivals to attend, to a local village fete or carnival, rotary social BBQ or work picnic or ball in the park, or just a regular (but exciting) school fetes. You may attend quite a few of these, or just one. You or some family member might even be involved in organising some of these.
21 Summer Clothes - take some photos. Shorts, little tank tops, flip-flops (jandals or thongs), caps and hats to shield the sun, jeweled sandals, sarongs, t-shirts with logos, strappy heeled sandals showing bare feet and painted toe-nails (on women, and some men like David Beckham perhaps). Summer clothes often show you the whole colourings and themes for the season also. Look out to see - is orange and pink still in? Or are we now doing naturals like khaki, sand and white?
22 The Sun - some of us avoid it, some seek it. Is sunbathing still on your agenda (hopefully with common sense?) What sun protection factor do you use in sunscreens. Or do you avoid the sun completely, for medical or other reasons? Do you or family members have special sun-loungers for basking in the sun’s rays? Or, on holiday (in a resort perhaps) do you run to grab chairs first thing in the morning, to allow your sun-bathing?
23 Flora and Fauna - some people aren’t interested, but I am. Dragonflies I love, and all the birds and newly-moulted English animals around the fields in early summer, avoiding the hottest points of the day. Even the buzzing annoyances of the little flies and insects which dive-bomb you in the early evening speckled light.
24 Picnics Al’Fresco- have you got a local picnic spot? What foods do you take packed up? What do you do there (other than eat?). If you can’t go anywhere, do you still dine al’fresco outside in your garden (or balcony etc if you don’t have one?) - that’s something my family does often in summer. In Britain, at least, garden furniture - tables and chairs and gazebos and benches are much desired simply so that we can sit out and dine al’fresco. Last year my family waited for three months of weekends for a chance to go out and picnic at a lake, we had new picnic blankets and a picnic basket to use. We never got a chance, thanks to the weather. But we did manage to catch some summer outside in our garden and dine al’fresco.
25 Summer Food - I’ve already mentioned local-grown strawberries, and of course - BBQs. But what other food and drink significantly mean summer to you, and how does your family enjoy them? Here, my hubbie makes an awesome summer-berry pudding, and I crave potato salad as well as the leafier salads. And of course, fruit juices and alcohol seem tempting enough as thirst quenchers. In New Zealand, summertime was a great time for weddings (as it is anywhere) but these often meant a local hangi - food cooked underground. Here, a mild equivalent might be the pig-spit, which can be hired for summer parties also. What other foods are important on your summer taste agenda?
26 Summer Fun - an all encompassing theme is summer fun. But it’s not only a useful title for a scrapbook layout, it’s something that most of us plan to achieve, and arrange for - to make the best of the good weather. What’s fun for you?
27 Summer Music - what playlist features during this season for you? I actually have a playlist called Summer Music - there are many songs which feature the season in it, and putting this music on means I begin to feel quite happy about it. They are generally feel-good songs. We play them through an IPOD when going on long driving trips, and sing along. What music features for you?
28 Days Out - we’ve documented picnics, the great outdoors, sports, festivals etc. But summer often finds other days out just for the sake of getting out and about, whether it’s a sunday drive, with the windows wound down; a shopping expedition to a super-mall to get the most out of the summer sales; or a walk around the neighbourhood.
29 Days Stuck In - wet days, errghhh! Great Britain seems to experience far too many of these in summer lately, even to the point of some terrifying flash floods for some people. But if you (or your holidaying school children) are confined indoors for long periods of time (because of the weather, or they may be sick) then how is this spent? Do you have a big stash of books, DVDs, crafting projects? Do they forever inform you how bored they are? Do you go to the movies, or shopping indoors, just to pass the time? What do you feel when the sun finally peeks through the clouds - is it relief?
30 Good-Bye Summer - the final page. You can add a summary page, perhaps with a montage of some of your favourite summer photographs, or document your feelings as the first leaves begin to colour up for Autumn / Fall. The kids are back at school, school runs are making the local streets more busy, the evening temperatures are turning nippy, and you’re beginning to spend more time indoors. Good-bye Summer.
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