Random Thoughts and Ideas from Austin

July 7, 2009

Shirley and Clenneth's 50th Anniversary

Well I am long overdue posting in here. So, I thought it was time to add a new post. Currently I am working on a Scrapbook for my sister who's in-laws just celebrated their 50th in April. I am using the beautiful Golden Anniversary kit that Nayyan designed for us.

My sister lives several hours away from me and she is on dial up so we decided to post the scrapbook here at Scrapbook Flair while we are working on moving the photos around and adding the journaling.

I have to say I had no idea how hard it would be to do a Scrapbook for an event that I did not attend with a lot of people that I don't know. I admire you guys who do this for a living.

So, I would love any recommendations you have to make this book better. I know my sister will appreciate it as well.

Here is the link.

http://www.scrapbookflair.com/Rae_Ann/Clenneth__Shirleys_50th_Take_1

Thanks everyone for your help.

posted by Rae Ann @ Jul 7, 2009 | 0 comments | |

November 21, 2008

A great story from one of our members

A just wanted to share this touching story from one of our members.

Dear friends at ScrapbookFlair,

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for creating ScrapbookFlair. It has made such a difference to my life! Not only by making it possible for me to fill many hours with a pleasurable pastime, but, thanks to you, I now have some wonderful news, which I want to share with you.

I shall try to keep this as brief as I can.

I am Sylvia, AKA Broody Hen. On October 24th, 25th, 26th and 28th, I posted some pages showing old black and white photographs of my late mother's family, which were found among my late grandmothers 'treasures'.

My mother's mother left England in 1914 to live in South Africa. That same year she married in South Africa. The man she married was part of a very large family which had left England some years earlier, and had settled there. In 1929 her husband died, and she returned to England with her two daughters, aged seven and fourteen years.They remained here, where my grandmother remarried.

Over the years the family here in England gradually lost touch with the family in South Africa. My grandmother had told me some tales of their life in Durban, but my mother told me very little. It seemed she was not prepared to 'share' her memories with anyone. My mother's late father's brother, my great uncle, visited England in 1955, when I was nine years old, and I found photo's of my sister and myself taken with him at that time. He returned to South Africa on the ship called the Queen Mary, which is also on some of my photographs.

When my mother died, two years ago, I was asked if there was anything I wanted from the family home. I asked for any old photographs which the family may have left. I asked just in time, as my sister and her husband were not interested in old photo's and they were bound for the local rubbish dump!

I have spent many hours, with the help of my husband, going through these old images, from both my mother's family and my father's family, which go back to my great grandparents on both sides. I decided to make some scrap pages using some of my mother's 'lost' family, from South Africa. One of my SBF friends, June, AKA Ferro, enquired about the family name, as she has a friend in Durban. Within a short time she emailed me with nine addresses in Durban, where people with this name were living. I think these had been found in the Durban telephone directory. Incidentally, it is not a common name, and I couldn't find it on the internet.

Well, June suggested that I write a letter and enclose some copies of some family photo's, with as many names as I could find relating to family members, and send it to the addresses. I did this, sending one to each of the nine addresses. I now have many emails from a very excited family in South Africa. It seems that they have spent many years looking for anyone over here who was part of their family, who could fill in missing bits of their history too! They are deffinately my missing family!

So, dear friends at SBF, I have to say a huge THANKYOU to you all. You cannot imagine how much pleasure you have brought to our family. We have been reunited across the miles, and none of this would have been possible without SBF.

Again, many thanks, and my very best wishes to you all, Sylvia.

posted by Rae Ann @ Nov 21, 2008 | 0 comments | |

August 7, 2008

Top 10 Songs and Top 20 Bands

I thought you might enjoy this. I just had to join the challenge for your Top Ten Music List. It was extremely difficult to narrow the list down to 10 favorites. So, this is my current Top 10 in my itunes. My top 10 will probably be different next week. You can view my page by clicking on the link below.

http://www.scrapbookflair.com/Rae_Ann/Rae_Anns_Top_10_Music_Picks

1. The Bravery - An Honest Mistake
2. Santana/Rob Thomas - Smooth
3. Alpha Rev - Stuck in a Crowd
4. Bain Mattox - Peripheral People
5. The Cinematics - Break
6. Ingram Hill - Almost Perfect
7. Meridian West - Revolution
8. Wideawake - Not so far away
9. Better than Ezra - Juicy
10. Cobra Starship - Bring it

I haven't created a scrapbook page yet. But here are my Top 20 bands. Since, I can't possibly rank them, I have listed them in alphabetical order. And yes this is a relatively eclectic list. To create this list, I took into account stage presence, energy (the ability to totally rock out) and the fact that I love almost everything recorded by these bands.

1. Alejandro Escoveda
2. Alpha Rev
3. Bain Mattox
4. The Bravery
5. Chris Isaak
6. The Cinematics
7. Cowboy Mouth
8. Depeche Mode
9. DeSol
10. Franz Ferdinand
11. Gaelic Storm
12. Ingram Hill
13. Meridian West
14. OK Go
15. Paulo Nutini
16. Rob Thomas/Matchbox Twenty
17. She Wants Revenge
18. Sister Hazel
19. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
20. Wideawake

Also, I have seen everyone on both lists live except Santana. But I have seen Rob Thomas perform an acoustic version of Smooth live which still rocked and will have to hold me over until I can see Santana live in September. You should be able to find most of these bands on my myspace page if you would like to check them out.

Enjoy!

posted by Rae Ann @ Aug 7, 2008 | 2 comments | |