Scrapbooking: A rant

Scrapbooking used to be about taking bits of ephemera (aka... the scraps) that came your way... newspaper clippings, postcards, photos and such, and gluing them in an album. Somewhere along the line it took a turn for the weird.

I blame Michael's Arts & Crafts.

These days you can buy all kinds of bizarre things to stick in your scrapbook, which veers too far from the original intention of collecting the scraps that come your way. Maybe I'm a purist. Perhaps I needed to evolve my definition of scrapbooking. So off I went to Version Scrap, the scrapbook exhibition at Parc Floral in Paris.

I expected (and found) a lot of this crap:

But then came some interesting uses for paper, like this fancy wall covering:

And these cute feathers:

Even the doily made sweet love to the hole punch and came up with this offspring:

Ribbon is ever so much more cheery when one wears a top hat:

Never keep the French waiting for grub. The food trucks just rolled right in:

Then came the gallery, which was more than just scrapbooking... it was, dare I say, lovely art:

So I was wrong.

I admit, I was kind of judgmental of scrapbookers and their craft prior to this little exhibition. But they won me over. I mean, how can you turn away from someone who creates something as cute as this:And just in time for Easter.