The infamous scrapbook!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh this scrapbook has been the bain of my existance for the last several weeks. I know I have no right to complain it was my choice to wait untill the very very last minute....I had pictures given to me by my dad of his sister Mary Ellen to passed away from a drowning accident when she was 12 and he was just a few years older than her. He gave me the pictures years ago and I didn't do it and didn't do it....He even asked me once for the pictures back and I bold face lied to him that I didn't know where they were. I knew right where they were but I had every intention of doing the book - someday. Well that day came when Dad called me and said he'd be visiting just after his birthday Feb. 14. I had about two weeks. Sounds like a lot of time, but if you know me and my scrapbook skills. Ugh you know it would take an act of God to help pull this off. He did it. I did it. I got it done.

He loved it and he was swiping tears.....

This is my grandmother. I cleaned up a lot of the pictures which my grandmother and a hankerin' to write all over. This picture had the caption "coal yard Kaye" written on it so I made it the title for my page! There are actually two other pages before this one but I forgot to take pictures of them

This is my dad as a baby. "Baby me" is what the title says. This picture was an original in and really bad shape. The reason the word baby is where it is is because there is a huge hole in the picture. All the little round dots are buttons and they also hide a huge number of holes.

My dad and his sister Anna. I love the little cut out of the little girl pushing the stroller, it matched the page so well. This cut out was made by the machine that Binyam bought me for Christmas! The top photo here was a copy but the bottom one was one of very few originals that I had.

That is my Dad and his older sister Anna. The sailboat and the car are stickers....I love this page.

This photo starts the celebration of Mary Ellen's arrival. The sideways quote says, "There was a star danced and under that was I born - Shakespeare" The page is dotted with little sparkly jewels like the one just above the word star....."Mary Ellen" This picture had a really really old look to it. So I used photo shop to make some effect. I can not remember what effect I used. I think it might have been pencil sketch, but it really gave a different quality to the photo really in effect brightening it up and making it look a little less old. Old is good but the original was old dark and dreary and that wasn't good at all. Quote says, "Little girls are the nicest things that happen to people."

You'll notice I did not write anywhere in the book. I thought it best left to my Dad. This photo when having writing added might say something like "no grunts here" all grandma's kids were above 10lbs. This is Mary Ellen next to her cousin looking like a sumo wrestler.....

Mary Ellen and my grandfather, her dad. Another photo that was in really bad shape that I was able to clean up really really well! You can barely tell there but that writing at the bottom was a photo scan of Mary Ellen's grade school composition note book here she had written her "autobiography" It is literally her hand writing describing that exact scene. Dad choked up on this one!

This photo was taken the same day way back when the other one was taken on the previous page. I also did a photo shop effect on this one. I just liked it. I think it is water colored. That big blank block is for writing. I doubt my dad will write in it after pointing it out he said he didn't want to ruin the page.....Ugh, the no writing thought kind of backfired on me. Oh well.

Again Mary Ellen's description of this picture. She is around 2 or 3 years old. I tore the pictures edges to give it an older feel since it was a fixed up copy. Another cut out from my wonderful machine!

This is one of my least favorite pages....but even it was not bad. Next to the rocking horse cut out are little pockets holding tags which you can pull out and write on, then tuck back in and "hide" the writing. There is a little strip again of Mary Ellen's writing. It says, "I am crying because I didn't want to go home." I crunched the paper up to make it look warn then I used walnut ink to "age" it The writing at the top says " Who would have know so much went on in the soul of such a young girl. - Anne frank"

Mary Ellen's grade school photo. Its hard to really see the fine details but Mary Ellen is the one on the bottom row second one in from the left. Arms crossed. He socks are slouching and her hair is a hot mess. The quote on the page reads, "Little girls like butterflies need no excuses. - Ralph Waldo Emerson" The little velum envelopes on the page hide little cars which you can also use to write on.....

This is Mary Ellen's kintergarden report card, the actual one. Hilarious. There are many "seldom's" checked inside there. You can tell Mary Ellen was a real card from the get go. This was nice because the date was written inside.

Very simple page. The paper came with the old camera on it. I wrote on the tag, "Mary Ellen, age 8"This is Mary Ellen's grade five report card. The actual one. Nice again because her signature is written inside of it...

This was a piece of cloth that she had written all over "JM + MP" I did write on this one, you can barely make it out just above the top of the cloth and just below. I was really impressed in my heart about this one. My dad had written some notes years ago about some things and in his notes he asked, " who is JM?" it seemed like my dad was keeping notes with questions to ask his mom, my grandmother for info on. JM turned out to me Johnny Muniz. I wrote, " The amazing part of the question who is JM is not that it is Johnny Muniz but that a mother remembers. All these years later a mom remembers the precious first and only 'true love' of her daughter's life." My dad got a little choked up there too......

I love this page because it sits opposite of the one with the fabric. I pulled the colors from the page with the fabric and put them on this one the teal and the burgundy that were in the flower on the fabric page.

This page marked the beginning of the transition from Mary Ellen.....My Dad is pictured here with his brother Michael (I think) and his Dad on his Catholic confirmation.

This is one of the last pictures take of Mary Ellen. On the back of the photo it said Mary Ellen at 12 and she died when she was 12. This is also when she had apparently hacked her hair to pieces and the confirmation veil covered it up.A long ago Christmas....Oh, just realized I cut off the bottom of the page which had a little Christmas writing on it. That picture in the upper right there is an original of Mary Ellen, she has a crazy surprised look on her face.

Even though I was transitioning away from Mary Ellen, she is in this photo too. Guess it was nice that the book was clearly about her, but not all about her. The quote says "Christmas memories live forever in our hearts"

Simple page that I love....My Dad's mom...the one half responsible for the Palumbo clan I know...The writing says "deep rooted love". I love this page - there is a lot of symbolism in the trees.....

Kid pictures sit opposite of the Mom/grandmom page.

This is the last page in the book. I love it too. That is a very nicely cleaned up (in photo shop) picture of my dad as a kid. The paper is cut into "mosaic" pieces around....and there is a metal quote that says, " In the end it is not the years in your life that count but rather the life in your years. (well something to that effect....I can't read it right now just going off memory...) It was nice quote for my dad and for Mary Ellen.

I didn't take a picture of the front cover but at the very top my Dad is holding the book up a bit and you can see the front cover and that there is a space where you can put in pictures but I put in some patterned paper and a poem instead. I thought the poem was about both my dad and Mary Ellen. I was sad but fit.....

~ Sweet Briar Rose ~
Author Unknown


"Beside my cottage door it grows,
The loveliest, daintiest flower that blows,
A sweetbriar rose.

"At dewy morn or twilight's close,
The rarest perfume from it flows,
This strange wild rose.

"But when the rain-drops on it beat,
Ah, then, its odors grow more sweet,
About my feet.

"Ofttimes with loving tenderness,
Its soft green leaves I gently press,
In sweet caress.

"A still more wondrous fragrance flows
The more my fingers close
And crush the rose.

"Dear Lord, oh, let my life be so
Its perfume when tempests blow,
The sweeter flow.

"And should it be Thy blessed will,
With crushing grief my soul to fill,
Press harder still.

"And while its dying fragrance flows
I'll whisper low, 'He loves and knows
His crushed briar rose.'"

So there you have it. All in all I love the final result in the book. I have done a book or two in very little time, and always there are pages you don't love, but really I am very very pleased with almost all of these pages. I am glad it is done. Glad my dad liked it!