Here’s to a Smashing Good Year!

Did you keep a scrapbook or diary when you were growing up? I used to love to collect ticket stubs, images, and various sorts of paper items, and tape them into a leather-cover scrapbook from “the dime store”, as we used to call it. Well apparently, I still do! Recently I learned about the concept of a “smash book” in which paper lovers do just as I used to. The big difference is in the kinds of materials available today which add a lot more interest to the collecting and the “smashing.” I’ll give you a little tour of my 2014 Smash Book now that it’s time to start one for the New Year.



I tend to accumulate small bits of paper that I just love too much to part with. Things like attractive business cards, inspiring images… just bits and pieces, really. But the question remains, what to do with them? The smash book is the perfect solution. Instead of piling up in drawers, or being tucked out of sight in small baskets and boxes, they can all reside together in a meaningful and personal journal. I made mine using black cardstock cut to size, punched with holes, and bound with ring binders. So simple, and I can add pages as needed. Even the cover came from recycled mail art here, and created by Jan of Laughing Dog Arts.




Here are a few things that just can’t get thrown out partly because of the memories and partly because they are just pretty or intriguing. That toothbrush is actually a coupon to purchase an electronic device. It’s not that I have fond memories of my trip to the dentist, but that coupon caught my eye and came home with me. I already have a suitable toothbrush, so it came just because the image had such appeal. It’s hard to explain why I had to have it, so I don’t. Instead, I just “smash” it into my book and enjoy thumbing through from time to time.



Our guild newsletter had a photo and little article about me in it- into the smash book it went.




The book is a home for special greeting cards…




And colorful images… that chicken in the page below is from an original painting by Sonja Hagemann. I won some of her lovely hand-dyed fabric and the image was in the package.







Odd things find their way into the book, too. That’s a bread wrapper tab at lower right serving as a page marker.




Photos of a wonderful cruise to The Bahamas and memories of the quilt show held at a church in Nassau. The “keep calm” flyer was on my car windshield one day and seems to fit with this selection of photos. Some of the photos below were from art exhibits, but the photo of the cross is one we took in Yarnell, Arizona before the tragic fire that took the lives of 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots firefighters there. The cross was located at the top of a very steep climb through boulders at the Shrine of St. Joseph there, and I it did not survive the fire. Seeing the image bring sadness, but helps to remember and honor the 19.




I won’t make you look at all the pages, but you get the idea. Images worth saving go into the smash book, and become a keepsake. it’s been an enjoyable project, and I thought I’d share it here.



Happy New Year, and many blessings for 2015! As always, many thanks for visiting my blog.