Petra's Childhood Deck of Art

Queen of Spade - Wizard of Oz

2009-09-09T12:23:00.001-07:00

Journal reads: "I probably saw the Wizard of Oz (dubbed in German) many times as a child, as it was on regularly as part of the Christmas-time children’s programmes. I can vaguely remember the characters and even less defined the storyline, but my all-time favourite of the film was the song “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. I would hum the melody for days, and I still like it even today!
It is anybody’s guess what I expected there to be on the other side of that rainbow – I truly can’t remember, but maybe it was the world of the fairies with whom I was quite taken at that time. I certainly envied my friend her fairy carnival outfit!
Photo Carnival 1969"

Background paper from CS "DIY"; strips and labels from Colobok Flavia block; Prima mini flower and Making Memories brad.

King of Hearts - Family

2009-09-09T12:20:00.001-07:00

My own chosen theme because this was something I couldn't have missing from my childhood memories...
Journal reads: "I cannot think about my childhood without also thinking about how I missed having a “true family”. I was only 9 months old when my parents split up, and this photo is one of only a handful that show me together with Mum and Dad. After that, we lived with my Nan, and I had a cherished and well looked after childhood there – but I could never help feeling left out when it came to the “family things”…
Photo November 1965"

HOTP Heritage paper snippet; alphas from Caroles Creations Adorn Its; hearts with roses from Jolee's Boutique.

Four of Hearts - Patriotic

2009-09-09T12:16:00.001-07:00

The theme was of course chosen by an American lady - it was July 4th week... Unsuitable for a childhood in Germany - the journal tells why: "As a child of the Sixties in Germany I was brought up with the idea that patriotism is altogether despicable. Folklore and folk culture had been brought into disrepute due to Hitler’s connection with them and use of them in propaganda. Our folk tales, dialects, festivals and dances all were in bad flavour and even the great Nordic epics were taken off the curriculums. There were certainly no national holidays or parades. It was rare to even see women wearing our national dress, the Dirndl, as my Mum and I do in the photo. I’ve still got one of those and love wearing it for formal occasions.
Photo Summer 1968"

Finally got some use for this "German Collage" paper I bought ages ago; blue scrap from CS "Stepping Out"; peel-off alphas from Craft Creations; and a pretzl button from Dress It Up. Ribbon from my haberdashery box...

Ten of Clubs - Eyes

2009-09-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

The topic here was "eyes" and what came to mind for me was this slightly odd theme...
Journal reads: "When I was little, and even a good time into my grown-up life, I was afraid of the dark. Always, I could feel “things” present in the room, and eyes staring at me from the dark. My mother told me that this started after I’d been to the local funfair with my Dad and he had taken me on a Haunted House ride. Whether that’s true or whether the two things were connected I do not know, but I could often be seen late at night sitting up in my pyjamas, tired and bleary-eyed, or falling asleep in my favourite red “cocktail chair” with Mum and Nan watching telly. Photo Oct 1966"

Paper from an old Halloween kit; peel-offs from Craft Creations; and an assortment of wiggly eyes saved from old greeting cards.

Five of Clubs - Children say the darndest things

2009-07-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Back journal reads: "I cannot come up with any Petra-isms as my mother can’t remember any, other than my being unable to pronounce an “r”, therefore calling myself “Peta”! What I heard most in terms of my early vocalisation was that I didn’t want to speak at all, not even mama, papa or dada. I hardly made any noise apart from laughing or crying, and tried to communicate with expressions and gestures (I’m still fond of silences!), until I was fully two years old, when I would suddenly say whole sentences. My Mum has always proudly told me that the first thing I ever said was “Peta want dada” (well, the German equivalent). She also admitted that she was rather anxious because all other babies my age were saying words! Photo Oct 1966"

Piece of paper marbled in a class long ago; peel-offs from Craft Creations; duck button from Dress It Up; Provocraft Etcetera Jemz sticker; and paper clip from a Scrapmuse kit.

Nine of Diamonds - Home

2009-07-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Home...where your feet may leave, but not your heart. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Back journal reads: "Unfortunately, I have never felt like this about my home! This may have been due to the fact that our family was split apart when my parents separated. Mother and I then lived with my gran but I considered both our place and my father’s my home. Maybe because of that neither was quite “it”. It may also have to do with the fact that we lived on an estate, which was neither nice nor pretty – you can see it in the background of the photo. Photo 1968"

Paper was a leftover from the Wiggly Woods "Celebrations" kit and the ephemerals are cut out from a K&Co ephemerals page; plus mini key from 7Gypsies, and I seem to remember the lock being part of a Club Scrap kit...
The crest is that of my hometown Worms - it used to be one of many dangling from my favourite bracelet when I was a child - I would collect the little crests wherever we went for a holiday or day trip...
The quote was part of the weekly challenge and had to appear on the front of the card!

Three of Hearts - Your Desk

2009-07-01T16:05:00.001-07:00

The official theme was "What's on your desk right now?" but obviously that didn't fit for a childhood book, so I adapted it. Journal reads: "As a child, I was very proud to have my very own little chair and desk. I remember the desk had a blue melamine top with a latch that would release it to slide back and open to the big belly of the desk which was full of my toys, paints, pencils and books. Normally, I wasn’t allowed to have much on top – just whatever I was using, and when I was finished it had to go back into the “belly”. But on special days – like Christmas, Easter and my birthday - I was allowed to have all my presents and sweets sitting there, arranged for the day!
Photo: birthday 1966 (2 years old)"

Very simple card - pink paper, peeloffs from Craft Creations and Metal-Rimmed Stickers from Canada Inc.

Seven of Spades - Road Trip

2009-06-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

This theme gave me an instant layout idea!

Journal reads:" This is our first car – on our first “big outing”. At the age of 45, my mother decided to get a driving licence, and after many lessons and two tests, she finally held the coveted document and bought this 2^nd hand Opel Kadett (Opel is the original Vauxhall brand from Germany). It served us faithfully for many years, and many trips, the first of which was in 1974 to visit her sister, my Aunt Inge, in Bockeroth near Bonn (a distance of 133 miles). After years of getting around on buses, bike or foot, and holidays by train, our first road trip was a real excitement!"

All the cutouts are from Club Scrap kit "Road Trip"; brad from Making Memories, and peel-offs from Craft Creations.

Two of Diamonds - Monochrome

2009-06-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

The journal says it all:

"I figured the only way to get a monochrome layout with a photo was to use a b&w, which gave me the opportunity to sneak in a baby photo of “how it all began”. Not that this is a memory, of course, but it is an anecdote that both Mum and Dad have told me. They had never wanted children and by that time, didn’t get on well anyway, so the necessary prerequisite didn’t happen very often. Talking the days “before The Pill”, when one New Year’s Eve they got a bit too tipsy and forgot about all the precautions - I happened… I’m born on 30th September, which makes me exactly a 9-month child and kind of validates their story…
Photo: 29th November – almost two months old"

There isn't much on this card other than the photo - the two coordinating ribbons and the brad are from Making Memories; peel-offs from Craft Creations, and the mini tag was a leftover from a Scrapmuse kit.

Queen of Clubs - Essence of Bovinity

2009-06-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

I was brooding quite a while over this theme until I settled on the idea of milk which was one of the banes of my childhood...

Journal reads: "For my grandma, the Essence of Bovinity was certainly milk – much to my chagrin when I was a child. I’ve never really liked the taste of milk but it was hot milk with pepper for colds, hot milk with honey for sore throats, lukewarm milk in the evening to help you sleep and cold milk in the morning to wake you up! Even the strawberries came cut up in a bowl of milk….
Passport photo 1977"

The paper is from HOTP again; peel-offs as usual from Craft Creations; and the 3D stickers are Jolee's Boutique "Breakfast".

Joker - Crazy/Wild

2009-06-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

The title sprang to mind immediately when I read the theme: Wild Thing.

The journal reads: "My Nan and Mum desperately wanted me to be the sweet little girl that was always well-behaved and playing quietly and that they could doll up with pretty dresses and bows in my hair - really something to show off to their friends. But that wasn’t me! In my heart of hearts I was a wild thing who loved being out in nature, climbing trees and playing Indians. My greatest childhood treat was an afternoon at a pony farm, and from that day on, I wanted nothing so much as to learn horse riding!
Photo: 23.7.70 Ponyhof Ebental/Rüdesheim"

Papers and cutouts from HOTP Scrapper's Solutions "Boys"; cowboy boot charm from Club Scrap "Wild Wild West" kit; peel-offs from Craft Creations.

Two of Spades - Anger/Frustration

2009-05-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

The journal says it all really...
Clip journal reads: "There was enough to be frustrated over in my childhood: nobody to play with as I had no siblings or cousins, and no children of my age close by; never seeing my parents together for “family stuff” because were on non-speaking terms; my grandma’s overcooked meals - especially the meat was always horrid; Mother being out every night on sojourns with her boyfriends…but more than anything else it was having to sit tight and being quiet all afternoon in our little flat while grandma was teaching her piano students that got me frustrated. It was then that I developed my love for books - one pastime for which I didn't get told off!
Photo: 1968; Grandma and Monica Buchholz"

There isn't really much on this card - a tiny strip of sheet music vellum and the musical note charm, and I have no idea where I acquired them; all the peel-offs are from Craft Creations.

Ace of Clubs - Ribbon and Napkin

2009-05-20T07:27:00.001-07:00

This was a topic I really wanted to include in my childhood DOA, so having a "theme without a topic" was quite suitable, and you ladies really inspired me to do "something else" with the napkin. Therefore I used the little "Barn Red" Memories ink pad that must have been with a CS JR kit at some time (because they are the only inkpads I have!) and altered a faintly yellow napkin of the cheap "rough" type, to bring out the pattern in the paper and make it look more like the roses in the picture. I think it worked quite well...

Clip journal reads: "One of the highlights of the year for me as a child, something that I really remember strongly, was the annual Corpus Christi celebration – just at the beginning of summer when the days were ALWAYS sunny and warm. All the catholic churches would parade their monstrances through the streets, where people had laid out “altars” made of flowers. The processions would stop at each to sing favourite hymns and pray, and then move on. And all the small girls were “flower girls”: strewing petals in front of the priest and the monstrance. I loved it!
Photo taken 1968 after the procession."

I also used Making Memories ribbon (because it matched the colour of my dress), Making Memories brads, Craft Creations alpha peeloffs, and a doll's house cross charm. The background paper is handmade embossed with flowers (it's really beautiful paper that I've had for ages and this inspired me to cut into it - it's a shame you can't really see much of it).

Seven of Diamonds - Love

2009-05-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

I came a bit unstuck on the theme of love in my childhood - there are lots of interpretations I could have chosen but found it difficult to contain them in a few lines of journal, and they did not suit the aim of this project for me to explore the "moments and little events" that would pop up in my memory when thinking about a theme or looking through photographs... So I chose to interpret this theme as "something I really loved":

Clip journal reads:""One thing I have always loved, and still do, is fancy dress. Whether it was dressing up in out-of-fashion gear of my Mum’s or Nan’s, which they kept in an old suitcase under the bed for that purpose, complete with hats, shoes and jewellery, or best of all, at the annual Carnival didn’t matter.
The photo was taken at a “Kräbbelkaffee” in 1970 – the children’s fancy dress parties that were on during the carnival season. I think Mum enjoyed coming mostly for the “kräbbels”."

The background paper is CS "Key to my Heart" (I have lots of leftover bits from the 8 1/2 x 11" lock+key paper as I used them for our blessing invites); plus Pebbles Real Life labels; Metal Rimmed Stickers "Made in Canada" and EK Success Disney 3D stickers.

Nine of Hearts - Games

2009-05-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Clip journal reads: "Playing games reminds me invariably of my father. We played often: in summer, we would take a badminton or dart set to the park, and in winter, it was board games in the cosy kitchen at his place. He even taught me chess, which I still love – even though I never won. At best, he would let me have a draw…
The photo is of Dad in 1939."

Papers, cutouts and mini domino from Club Scrap "Games"; peel-off dice corners from Craft Creations; Scrabble alphas from Jolee's Boutique.

Queen of Diamonds - Button

2009-05-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Clip journal reads: "Of course I have no recollection of my baby days – but lots of photos, thanks to “Uncle Sator”, a friend of my grandma’s. So the “Cute as a Button” idea was a good way to sneak a baby photo into this childhood deck…and after all, grandma usually made sure that her darling girlie looked as cute as possible!"

Paper from The Paper Connection; peel-offs from Craft Creations; bows and buttons from my needlecrafts stash.

Queen of Hearts - Ocean

2009-05-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

Clip journal reads: "Growing up well “inland” at a time when far-away holidays were only just coming into fashion for ordinary people, I have no childhood recollections of the ocean. Beach and shells were something I only knew theoretically. It wasn’t until a chance trip to Belgium as a teenager that I walked a beach, saw an ocean horizon and swam in salty water for the first time in my life. It was a cold, dreary day early in the year but I insisted that I would go for a swim – I did about ten strokes, and I was the only person there in a bikini! Photo Oostende, 1980"

Papers, tag and accent beads from Club Scrap kit "By the Seashore"; brad from Making Memories; peel-offs from Craft Creations; real shells and cotton wool for the spray.

Five of Hearts - Mother Goose

2009-05-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

Clip journal reads: "I don’t remember Mother Goose from Germany, but Mum and Nan started a veritable collection of fairytales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen for me. They came with records as well as big picture and text books, and I got one or two of those for every occasion: birthday, Christmas and Easter. In the picture, Grimm’s “Sterntaler” record sits between all the chocolate eggs and bunnies, and I’m reading the book.
The photo is Easter 1970."
"Stern" is the German word for "star" - hence the theme for the deco...

Background is some embossed star paper - no idea where that came from... The stars are Jolees by You and the peel-offs from Craft Creations.

Three of Spades - Insects

2009-04-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

Clip journal reads: "My mother has always told me how I was fascinated by all things living – from horses to butterflies. But what I remember is counting the spots on ladybirds wherever I saw one close up, and that my grandma would tell me it was okay to carry round the red ones with the black spots, but the black ones with the red spots were poisonous. I’ve spent my life wondering whether that is true…?"

Background and cutouts from Club Scrap "Bugs"; peel-offs from Craft Creations; ladybugs from my friend Eve.

Ace of Spades - red black purple

2009-04-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Clip journal reads: "I have always loved the colour red, still have lots of red things to wear, and the one garment I vividly remember from my childhood was this favourite folk style skirt in bright red. You can tell that I loved it from the amount of photos in which it appears, and I must have got my Nan to alter it several times to “grow with me”. The quote on this card is very appropriate, too, as feeding the animals in the wildlife park was something I always looked forward to. We would go there once or twice a year…"

The "background" is the actual back of the card; sentiment tag is from Club Scrap "Study in Red"; silk flowers and brads from Daisy D.

Jack of Clubs - Circus

2009-04-29T11:08:00.001-07:00

Clip journal reads: "I’m glad this topic came up because it reminded me of one of the great excitements of my childhood that are not represented anywhere else… I loved going to the circus! Two of the big circuses, Zirkus Krone and Zirkus Sarasani, visited Worms on their annual tours, so at least once a year my father would take me. Mum hated the circus – she considered it profane entertainment and hated the animal smells, which for me were part of the attraction! That’s why there isn’t a single photo – my father never bothered to invest in a camera!"

The background paper was a circus collage; tickets from Club Scrap "County Fair"; peel-offs from Craft Creations; and the charm was a pin brooch once. It's a circus rider.

Two of Hearts - Childhood

2009-04-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

This is another blog I created to follow up my artwork for a challenge on an Internet crafters' forum. It is called a Deck of Art and basically requires participants to alter the back sides of a deck of cards following weekly themes on particular cards. The first week suggested "Childhood" on the two of hearts, and it was this theme that gave me the idea of doing something similar yet different: a mini scrapbook to explore my childhood. I will alter the card backs according to the theme and will journal what this theme brings to mind with regards to my childhood. This should be an interesting exercise because I don't remember all that much, or at least I don't think I do, yet when I ponder a while things do come to mind... The journals will be clipped to the suit side of the cards with decorative paper clips. So here is the first one:

The journal reads: "This is a Deck of Art, completed as part of a group challenge. The first topic has inspired me to take part in this, making it an unusual mini scrapbook to explore my childhood of which I cannot easily remember much. It is a mystical time of Christmas trees and blown-out Easter eggs, of cinnamon rolls and pea soup with bacon, of piano music and bows in my hair, of carnivals and Backfischfest…but let’s see what else a bit of prompted thought might discover…"

The photo is Mum in 1932, the stickers are from Club Scap "Time & Space" and the teddy 3D is from Laura Ashley stickers.