Scrapbooking Memory Lane

We're in the process of rearranging the living spaces in our house as 1. we are now empty nesters and the empty rooms are getting to me, and 2. a surprise bathroom renovation had us moving things around anyway so why not take a look at the spaces and decide how the house will now work best for our current needs.

The downstairs area that is currently my craft room does not have any natural light and it's hard to see as the dim light is hard on my eyes. The upstairs room that is now a guest room will become my office and craft space. It has a large closet to store everything and plenty of windows. My husband and I decided it was a "waste" of living space to have the guest room in large bedrooms upstairs as now our youngest moved out and his room can be used guests. There's enough space for a queen bed, dresser, and night stand in the room (and a closet). And an added benefit to moving my space upstairs is that I won't have to go up and down the stairs multiple times a day (I've been having foot issues) if the dog starts barking since our door bell doesn't work.

I've been sorting through all my crafting supplies and came upon this book I created (my daughter designed the cover (she was around 8 at the time):

I loved scrapbooking magazines and had a subscription to all of them. At the time I started the binder, I believe there were four magazines: Creating Keepsakes, Paper Kuts, Memory Makers, and Scrapbooks Etc, and that's not counting the two stamping magazines I also got Stamp It! and The Rubber Stamper, and the publications were over running my scrap room so I decided to only keep the articles I loved and put them in binders.

It's so interesting to look back and see what was trending in the late 1990s and early 2000s in scrapbooking. I have pages and pages of punch art and paper piecing which is now pretty much a lost art as more crafters have moved on to electronic die cut machines. The layouts showcased had a more simple style with flat embellishments while in the later years the layouts shown in the magazines were a more complicated, layered style with dimensional embellishments. Now, I want to take some time going through some of the albums I made when I first started scrapbooking and then take a look at the more current ones and see how my style has changed.