Polaroids are one of my new obsessions...Its an obsession I now share with my Uncle Herb.
Uncle Herb is paralyzed on one side and has lost the ability to speak..at least to speak in long rambling conversational sentences. He has mastered a few words, and communicates mostly using those few words and his tone of voice. He tells the best jokes and stories of anyone I know, but he does it all with expressions and tone and just a few simple words.
When I was growing up, he had this thing for Polaroid cameras. He would take pictures of the people he met, the places he'd been, the things that interested him over the days and weeks of his life...and then put a series of pictures in his pocket and carry them around with him. They became his portable scrapbook.
That was how he told his story, since he couldn't talk or use many words. When he wanted to tell others of a trip he took to visit his aunt, or a drive to the Lavender Inn for dinner or a night of playing Eights with the family, or the beautiful roses in the front yard, he would reach into his breast pocket and pull out a series of Polaroid pictures and lay them out in order on the table. Then he would point to each one in turn, and say, "And yes! and OHHHHHHH!" His method of story-telling is remarkably clear and beautiful.
There are days I wish I could get my hands on some of those "stories" and put them in a real book for him.
This is a memory I cherish of my uncle...a uniquely "Uncle Herb" thing...and it makes the fact that I love to scrapbook seem a bit like it runs in the family.
For Christmas I got an instax camera and I love fiddling with it. It honestly takes some practice, and the pictures, of course, are not the greatest things in the world.
Fun-but-not-great is the POINT of a Polaroid picture, don't you think? My kids think it is infinetly cool...kind of like I did when I was a kid and I watched my uncle Herb taking pictures.
I've done a bit of experimenting with using Polaroid frames on regular pictures. I have a layout coming, but I'm not QUITE done with it yet.
In the process of obsessing, I have found myself purchasing a lot of products that are Polaroid frame specific.
I purchased this paper from
KI Memories:
And this one from
Jillibean Soup:
And these little lovies from
Studio Calico:
On one rainy morning a few weeks ago, I found myself looking for a couple of good tutorials on using the frames, as well as making my own (cuz the sizes of the ones I buy never seem QUITE right).
In my search I found a layout by Kirsty Smith of
Curiouser and Curiouser:
And, of course, the ever amazing
Shimelle (she might be my new bestest scrapbook hero!) had Ms. Smith as a guest blogger...and she did an outstanding tutorial for creating the elements of this stunning layout: You can see it
HERE.
And then finally, I found a great tutorial from Wendy Sue Anderson on the
Create Blog on making these sweet little frames just from scratch using a square punch and a paper trimmer...this is SO my speed! You can see the full tutorial
HERE:
Do you like polaroids?
Do you have any "polaroid" memories?