Mom's Grilled Cheese

One aspect of scrapbooking that I am so passionate about is recording the everyday moments of our lives. Take a minute to stop and think about your childhood. Do you remember Christmas celebrations? Birthday parties and special gifts? What about the first day of school? While you may not remember every detail about these events, I bet you have a highlight reel playing through your memory. You remember what Christmas looked and felt like as a kid, the family celebrations, your favorite birthday gifts, and some of your first days of school - especially your first day of high school. I bet you remember the big moments too - whether happy or sad. I was just five years old the day my youngest brother was born, and I remember the sequence of events of that day so clearly! And unfortunately, I remember with crystal clarity the day I miscarried. Those big moments get burned into your memory. . . but what about those everyday moments?

Those everyday moments are what make up the bulk of our life. It's the moments between life's major events where I would say 90% of our life is spent. It's impossible to remember everything, but, especially when it comes to my kids, I don't want to forget these special times in my life.

While I did enjoy scrapbooking everyday life, after Dave died, I had a driving need to record his everyday moments for our boys. I wanted them to have a record of the dad who adored them and would do anything for them. While God has blessed them with an awesome stepfather to pick up where Dave left off, I want them to know the legacy of their first daddy.

I also am passionate about scrapbooking these everyday memories because the time with my children is flying by. It is like grains of sand on the beach just slipping through my fingers and being washed away in the tide. When it came to parenting, my mom always told me, "The days are long, but the years are short," and there is not a more accurate truth about parenting. I want to remember the mispronounced words, the silly grins and jokes, and the adorable things they did. These everyday moments are when the training and important conversations took place.

So, this moment of making a grilled cheese sandwich for Zach was so special to me, I wanted to give it a page in the "family archives". For whatever reason it was just him and I at home, which was a rare occurrence. He asked me to make him a grilled cheese sandwich, and I will be forever grateful I stopped what I was doing to honor his request. I placed the sandwich in front of him and he dug in like it was fine dining, with lots of sound effects of "MMMMM." I thought he was adorable and snapped some photos with my phone, and then he looked up at me and said, "Mom, you make the best grilled cheese sandwiches . . . ever!"

My heart could have burst at his sincere compliment. I look at this layout and will always be grateful I took the time to spend these few minutes with him. When he looks at this page, he might remember the grilled cheese sandwiches, but as he gets older and becomes a father, I hope he looks at this page and see the time he and I spent together, and the fact I thought making him that sandwich was one of my most important tasks of the day.

Scrapbooking Tips:

One thing that will really boost my creativity is taking scrapbooking classes. I will watch all sorts of mini classes on scrapbook.com and take classes at scrapbooking conventions and retreats, but my favorite classes are the self-guided ones sold at scrapbookgeneration.com. Here you can download the class content which always included sketches and work at your own pace. Sometimes, Allison Davis will run them through a private Facebook group, and you can post your layouts, and see what others are doing in the class. It's amazing how many ideas you can come up with when you see how others work.

I took two classes having to do with using 6x6" paper pads for full size layouts (worth every single penny!) and I got inspired to create this layout although it does not use any 6x6" papers! The original sketch called for 3 - 6x6" papers to create a mat for the photos. After finding these photos, I came up with the idea to create grilled cheese sandwiches in place of the 6x6 papers.

Using scraps of cardstock and my Silhouette Cameo die cutting machine, I made three pieces of bread and three pieces of cheese. I felt the page needed a little more color, so I pulled in a full sized sheet of pattern paper trimmed to 11 1/2 x 11 1/2"as a background and stitched a border around it.

In order for the bread and cheese to really stand off the page, I inked the edges with a brown ink pad. Then I added a thin white photo mat under the three pictures because I felt the white stickers and journaling strips would stand out if I somehow did not add more white to layout.

I loved the funky font of the Doodlebug Designs, Inc. letter stickers I used. I think the combination of large capital and lower-case letters are perfect for childhood layouts.

Once I had the vision of how I wanted this layout to look, my page came together quickly. I loved how unique it is to Zach. I'm so glad I took these random photos!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock - Bazzill & The Stamps of Life

Pattern Paper - Bella Blvd.

Letter Stickers - Doodlebug Designs, Inc.

Silhouette Cut File: Sweet Afton (Design ID 60105)