I let, you let, we all let for eyelets!
November 29, 2005
For those of you who are not scrapbookers, just trust me when I say that 2002 was all about eyelets. In a craze that has only been skimmed by today's ribbon and flower fetish, scrappers of yesteryear used eyelets.
Standard 1/8" round eyelets were not enough. Oh no, no, no. We wanted squares, triangles, stars, ovals, big circles, small circles, daisies and diamonds. We wanted every color of the rainbow in every shade imaginable. Eyelet manufacturers were dizzy with excitement, producing anything we asked for and several things we didn't, thereby emptying our wallets at warp speed. They even gave us themed eyelets like bunnies and turkeys that looked surprisingly ready for a holiday feast what with the shotgun blast through their middles. But we bought them anyway, because, after all, they were EYELETS!!!
Packing for a crop went something like this:
- Lee Valley 32-piece watchmaker tins filled with (do I have to say it again?) . . .check.
- Hammer, anywhere hole punch and setters. . . check.
- Advil, earplugs. . . check.
Scrapping after the family went to bed was fraught with difficulties.
I can remember a mass e-mail from a magazine editor in late 2002 that basically said ENOUGH with the eyelets, already, and to please stop using them on every layout submission.
That was the beginning of the brad craze. Heh.
Anyway, I take this walk down memory lane to hopefully explain why I have 97 tic-tac containers of eyelets. NINETY-SEVEN! This is AFTER my massive purging and garage sale. If I had a penny for every eyelet I own I would have a lot of pennies. (Profound, I know)
So to make a microscopic dent in my supply, I dusted off forty containers or so and put 107 eyelets of varying shapes and colors to good use pinning down some shiny round confetti that I bought at Target the other day because I thought it would make a nifty layout background. Between laying out and adhering the confetti so it wouldn't move, pounding holes through it, picking out every style of red, blue, gold, green and white eyelet I could find, and trying to hold the eyelets in place while turning the whole stinkin page over to set them, it took . . . let me just calculate . . . mutter 2 plus 15 plus 297 carry the 2 mutter . . .oh yeah - FOREVER!
And THEN, of course, I didn't like it. *sigh* The all-over confetti background was just . . . too . . . much . . . even . . . for . . . me . . . (I myself am often surprised at life's little quirks)
Being a firm believer in never starting over, though, especially where 107 eyelets are concerned, I devised a way to salvage the layout by dusting off 2002's other big craze . . . vellum! Perfect! Toned down the background while leaving it visible - what IS this miracle stuff, anyway? Seriously, why did I ever stop using vellum? It's magically delicious! I must remember its healing properties. It probably could have cleaned up my flower mess of yesterpage!
So here it is: Confetti Emma (not to be confused with Fusilli Jerry) and my homage to the scrapbooking trends of 2002!
Happy Tuesday!
TPBQOTD (Look, I don't mean to be rude but this is not as easy as it looks, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't distract me.)